Local government: wildfire safety improvements.

Existing law, the Improvement Act of 1911, authorizes a public agency, as defined, to determine that it would be convenient, advantageous, and in the public interest to designate an area within which public agency officials and individual property owners may enter into voluntary contractual assessments to finance the installation of specified improvements that are permanently fixed to those owners' real property, as specified. Existing law also authorizes a legislative body of any public agency, defined to mean a city, county, or city and county, that has accepted the designation of very high fire hazard severity zone to designate an area for contractual assessments to finance the installation of wildfire safety improvements, as defined, that are permanently fixed to real property. This bill would expand this authority to public agencies in areas of the state that have been reasonably designated as very high or high fire hazard severity zones by the State Fire Marshal, as specified. The bill would also remove the requirement that wildfire safety improvements be made to existing real property and would authorize a voluntary contractual assessment for wildfire safety improvements to be used to acquire or construct wildfire safety improvements in connection with the rebuilding or reconstruction of property if the wildfire safety improvements are in addition to or an improvement to, and were not part of, the property as it existed immediately prior to the destruction or damage to the property by fire. The bill, except as specified, would also provide that wildfire resiliency and safety improvements that contribute to the defensible space Zone 1 of a property, as specified, are wildfire safety improvements for purposes of those provisions.