Safety Element

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Health and Safety Element Update

What is the Safety Element?

The General Plan describes the long-term goals for Cupertino's future, guides daily decision-making, and provides a roadmap to the future that encompasses the hopes, aspirations, values, and dreams of the community. The General Plan contains the City’s official policies on land use and community design, transportation, housing, environmental resources and health and safety. The Safety Element is one of seven State-mandated General Plan elements that discusses potential risks from natural and human-caused hazards and presents the City’s approach to minimizing harm to residents, businesses, buildings, infrastructure, economic drivers, services, and natural systems.

Health and Safety Element Update

Current Health and Safety Element (2014)

Appendix E: Geologic and Seismic Hazards (2014)

State law requires all local jurisdictions to update their Safety Element upon each revision of the Housing Element or Local Hazard Mitigation Plan, but no less than every eight years. The City is currently updating both the Housing Element and Local Hazard Mitigation Plan, which has triggered a review and update of and the existing Health and Safety Element. This update will make sure that the Health and Safety Element meets current requirements and contains important new topics, such as climate change adaptation and evacuation.

The Health and Safety Element will cover 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 Cupertino. The hazards affected by climate change are evaluated in the Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment, described in more detail below.

The process for updating the Health and Safety Element Update include conducting a Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment, preparing a Background Report, updating the information and policies in the Health and Safety Element, conducting environmental review, and providing an opportunity for public review, as shown in the Health and Safety Element Process diagram. The Health and Safety Element will then go through environmental review, public review, and public hearings concurrently with the Housing Element. The update process includes community engagement with opportunities for community members to review materials and provide feedback that will be integrated into the Health and Safety Element narrative, goals, policies, and strategies.

Health and Safety Element Process

Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment

The Health and 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 Climate Change 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 Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment will be summarized as part of the Health and Safety Element’s Background Report. These climate change hazards may include the following:

Relationship to Other Planning Documents

The Health and Safety Element is one part of Cupertino’s overall approach to protecting the community against natural hazards, and it will integrate with several other plans and programs to do this. Other parts of Cupertino’s overall safety framework include:

• The Santa Clara County Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan, which is a more detailed short-term plan that focuses on specific actions.
• The Cupertino Emergency Operations Plan, which is an internal plan for emergency response and recovery.
• The County’s Community Wildfire Protection Plan, which aims to reduce wildfire risk in jurisdictions throughout the county.

The Health and Safety Element will include background information, goals, and strategies from each of these plans and tie into them as appropriate to reduce risks from both natural and human-caused hazards.