Safety Element
Adopted Safety Element
After months of public input and thorough consideration, the Lafayette City Council adopted the updated Safety Element on August 28, 2023. Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate in the update process!
Safety Element Update
The California government requires all local jurisdictions to update their Safety Element upon each revision of the Housing Element or Local Hazard Mitigation Plan. The previous Safety Element, adopted in 2009, was out of date and did not include many of the required topics in current state law. This update ensured that the Safety Element meets current requirements and contains important components, such as climate change adaptation and evacuation. The Safety Element Update was led by the Planning Department and the General Plan Advisory Committee, with technical support from the consulting firm PlaceWorks.
The City will conduct a Vulnerability Assessment as part of the Safety Element Update to analyze Lafayette’s susceptibility to climate change hazards, which were then integrated into the Background Report. The Background Report includes descriptions of climate change hazards, along with natural and human-caused hazards not affected by climate change. The last step of the process will include updating the narrative based on the Background Report, and revising goals, policies, and programs to address hazards of concern and vulnerable populations and assets identified in the Vulnerability Assessment. The Safety Element update process included community engagement throughout the process with multiple opportunities for community members to provide stories of lived experiences, review materials, and provide feedback that was integrated into the Safety Element narrative, goals, policies, and programs.
What does the Safety Element cover?
The Safety Element covers a variety of natural and human-caused hazards, including drought, wildfires, extreme heat, and seismic activity. This will include a discussion of climate change-related hazards and how climate change may affect the frequency and severity of hazards in and around Lafayette. The hazards affected by climate change are evaluated in the Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment, described in more detail below.
The Safety Element is required to include a vulnerability assessment that looks at how people, buildings, infrastructure, and other key community assets may be affected by climate change. The Vulnerability Assessment focuses on climate change hazards and will follow guidance from the California Adaptation Planning Guide with the goal of identifying which populations and community assets (buildings, infrastructure, economic drivers, natural systems, and key services) are most vulnerable to climate change hazards. The results of the Vulnerability Assessment will be summarized as part of the Safety Element’s Background Report.
The Vulnerability Assessment will assess how these climate change hazards may affect different population groups and community assets and the ability of populations and assets to prepare for, respond to, and recover from hazards using existing resources and tools.
Click the image at right to use an interactive online map of Safety Element hazards.
What is the Safety Element?
The City of Lafayette General Plan is the City’s blueprint for how and where the city will grow over the next 20 years. The Safety Element is one of seven state-mandated General Plan element that discusses potential risks from natural and human-caused hazards and presents the City’s approach to minimizing harm to residents, visitors, buildings, infrastructure, economic drivers, services, and natural systems.