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City Council adopts Glendale 2025 General Plan safety element update, cites expanded wildfire designations and new climate policies
Summary
The council voted to adopt the 2025 update to Glendale’s General Plan safety element and accompanying CEQA exemption findings; staff cited required climate-change vulnerability and emergency evacuation technical studies and a recent CAL FIRE map that expanded fire-hazard designations by roughly 1,500 acres.
The Glendale City Council voted unanimously to adopt the 2025 update to the city’s General Plan safety element and to adopt related California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) exemption findings at its April 1 meeting.
City planning staff presented the update as a state-mandated element that identifies hazards and recommends policies and programs to reduce risk from earthquakes, wildfires, flooding, hazardous materials and climate-change impacts. The staff presentation identified two required technical studies attached to the safety element: a Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment (CCVA, Appendix B) and an Emergency Evacuation Analysis (Appendix C). The evacuation analysis modeled wildfire and landslide evacuation scenarios and identified roadway capacity issues and single-access neighborhoods.
Staff said that following Cal FIRE’s March 24 release of updated wildfire hazard maps, the city updated its proposed Wildfire Hazard Severity Zones and Critical Facilities Map (plate P-3). The presentation noted approximately a 1,500-acre increase in areas designated within high/very high/moderate fire hazard zones and recommended policies to strengthen evacuation communications, coordinate with Los Angeles County Flood Control and Cal FIRE, and expand cooling-center and tree-planting measures to reduce heat risk.
During deliberations councilmembers questioned whether designated emergency response routes would receive interdepartmental review (fire and police) before final roadway changes. City staff said the safety element requires departments to coordinate and that transportation and parking commission review is part of implementation for on-street changes. Councilmembers also asked about a provision that calls for an “aggressive electrical undergrounding plan”; Scott Nolan, Acting General Manager of Glendale Water and Power, told council that fully undergrounding the system could cost on the order of "5 or $600,000,000" and that a phased approach focusing on the most hazardous feeders would be more likely.
The council motion to adopt the safety element update and the CEQA exemption findings passed on roll call with votes recorded in the meeting minutes; Planning Commission had earlier unanimously recommended adoption. Staff acknowledged Rincon Consulting and Kittelson Consulting and internal planning staff for the technical analyses.
