Costs and Risks

The Zone 0 mandates to remove privacy hedges, street buffers, and landscape features that keep our neighborhood livable, beautiful, and environmentally healthy will cause serious, lasting harm.

Increased Fire Risk: Removing moisture-laden vegetation can create “wind tunnels” that accelerate ember spread and increase structure ignition risk.

Loss of Fire Resistant Plants : Peer-reviewed research demonstrates that properly-maintained vegetation can reduce fire spread by catching embers and lowering radiant heat exposure.

Environmentally Unsound: Mass vegetation removal worsens air quality, increases stormwater runoff, destabilizes hillsides, decimates irreplaceable biodiversity, and makes homes hotter by eliminating shade.

Increased Utility Rates: Hotter homes mean increased use of a/c, greater peak-period electric use, higher electric bills for all customers, and degraded electrical system reliability.

Financial Burdens: Homeowners will face costly expenses to comply with Zone 0 as they remove vegetation and replace their landscaping with hardscaping.

According to the California Natural Resources Agency, approximately two million statewide structures and 400,000 LA County structures would be affected by the new Zone 0 regulations. LA County, worried about the impact from the significant vegetation clearing of larger shrubs and trees required by the proposed regulations, created a tool to map this potential impact on Los Angeles County’s tree canopy. The results are significant.  The City of West Hollywood could lose 22% of its tree canopy.  The Echo Park neighborhood could lose almost 16%. Thai Town would lose 33% and Brentwood 4%. 

See for yourself the impact on your home by using the link to map your address and neighborhood.

Losing tree canopy will have wide-ranging and lasting impacts. Trees provide shade, filter air pollutants, improve stormwater absorption, and stabilize soil, and offer critical habitat for birds and other wildlife. Can we accept the permanent loss of mature ecosystems that take decades to replace?