Overview – SB 1425 and AB 1889

Senate Bill 1425 (Stern, 2022) added Section 65565.5 to the Government Code on September 30, 2022. This law requires all cities and counties to review and update the open space element of their general plans by January 1, 2026, to address three specific topics:

• Equitable access to open space for all residents, correlated with the environmental justice (EJ) element
• Climate resilience and other co-benefits of open space, correlated with the safety element
• Rewilding opportunities, as defined, correlated with the land use element

Assembly Bill 1889 (Friedman, 2024), also known as the “Room to Roam Act” amended Section 65302 of the Government Code to require cities and counties to review and update the conservation element of their general plans in the next adoption or revision of one or more elements on or after January 1, 2028, to:

• identify and analyze connectivity areas, permeability, and natural landscape areas within the jurisdiction;
• identify and analyze existing or planned wildlife passage features to ensure that planned development does not undermine their effectiveness;
• consider the impacts of development and the barriers caused by development to wildlife and habitat connectivity;
• avoid, minimize, or mitigate impacts and barriers to wildlife movement to the extent feasible; and
• analyze and consider opportunities to remediate existing barriers to wildlife connectivity and restore degraded habitat and open space.

How Can Cities and Counties Comply?

While SB 1425 and AB 1889 have different requirements for open space and conservation elements, both laws address the management of open space and there are many similarities in the requirements for rewilding and habitat connectivity. Cities and counties should consider whether it is more effective to address both requirements through a single general plan update process, either as stand-alone updates to the open space and conservation elements or by addressing the requirements as part of a more comprehensive general plan update. SB 1425’s requirements must be correlated with other general plan elements (i.e., environmental justice, land use, and safety element), so a more integrated and comprehensive general plan update may be appropriate for some jurisdictions.

In addition, numerous other bills were signed into law in recent years that add new general plan update requirements on similar topics, which may also be a consideration on what approach to take in satisfying multiple new general plan update mandates. Examples include:

• SB 379 (2015) – Climate Adaptation. Requires the safety element to include a climate change vulnerability assessment and goals and policies that address climate adaptation and resilience.
• SB 1000 (2016) – Environmental Justice. Requires cities and counties with disadvantaged communities to incorporate environmental justice policies into their general plans that address disproportionate pollution burdens and equitable access to public facilities, healthy food, safe and sanitary housing, physical activity, and civic engagement.
• AB 2684 (2024) – Extreme Heat. Requires the safety element to address extreme heat hazards upon the next update of one or more elements on or after January 1, 2028.

General plan updates to address these three bills could incorporate requirements from an open space element updated per SB 1425. Furthermore, because open space and conservation are often addressed in tandem in general plans, requirements from AB 1889 could also be incorporated to address the conservation considerations. Alternatively, cities and counties can meet the requirements of AB 1889 in a stand-alone wildlife connectivity element.

Strategies for complying with the requirements of SB 1425 and AB 1889 are described below.

Equity

Under SB 1425, open space elements now must be correlated with EJ elements, which are already required under SB 1000 (Leyva, 2016). Environmental justice includes improving opportunities for physical activity, increasing food access, enhancing equitable access to public lands and facilities, and generally addressing disproportionate health burdens associated with unjust land use decisions.

Strategies for equitable access to open space can include:

• building or expanding parks, gardens, or green spaces in underserved neighborhoods;
• designing regional trails, greenways, or open space networks that provide increased connectivity and access to underserved areas in a city or region; and
• improving access to educational, stewardship, and job opportunities for historically marginalized and disadvantaged communities in natural and working lands.

Example policies related to equitable access to open space can be found in San Diego County’s EJ Element under Goals EJ-12 and EJ-13.

AB 1889 requirements to remediate barriers to wildlife connectivity and restore degraded habitat and open space can also contribute to goals for equitable access when the actions are implemented in underserved areas. Avoiding, minimizing, or mitigating impacts and barriers to wildlife movement in public open space areas can also serve to provide opportunities to underserved communities for recreation such as walking and hiking, to the extent these activities do not compromise wildlife movement through connected open space networks.

Rewilding and Wildlife Habitat Connectivity

The Rewilding Institute defines rewilding as a “comprehensive, often large-scale, conservation effort focused on restoring sustainable biodiversity and ecosystem health by protecting core wild/wilderness areas, providing connectivity between such areas, and protecting or reintroducing apex predators and highly interactive species (keystone species).”

SB 1425 defines “rewilding opportunities” as including, but not limited to, the following:

• Opportunities to preserve, enhance, and expand an integrated network of open space to support beneficial uses, such as habitat, recreation, natural resources, historic and tribal resources, water management, and aesthetics
• Establishing a natural communities conservation plan to provide for coordinated mitigation of the impacts of new development

Rewilding, when viewed strictly as a conservation policy, is a biodiversity conservation strategy that prioritizes the needs of apex predators and keystone species. It is essential to ensure habitat connectivity because apex predators require very large and connected habitat areas for their survival that may span multiple jurisdictions, regions, or even states. By protecting or restoring the large areas of connected habitat needed by apex predators, many other species benefit and climate resilience improves. While rewilding necessarily occurs at very large scales, city- and county-scale planning can address important portions of large-scale rewilding goals.

AB 1889 aligns with the rewilding objectives of SB 1425 in its requirements to identify and analyze connectivity areas, permeability, and natural landscape areas in jurisdictions. California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) defines connectivity as “the degree that organisms or natural processes can move unimpeded across habitats—both terrestrial and aquatic.”

The bill also lists specific ways a jurisdiction can analyze connectivity areas. Cities and counties can consult with CDFW, California Native American tribes, and any open space districts that own lands designated for conservation within the city’s or county’s jurisdiction; consider relevant best available science (e.g., peer-reviewed literature, available datasets, or reports from agencies, tribes, and academic institutions); or consider scientific information on landscape connectivity. AB 1889 references several types of existing plans and data that address connectivity. The act also allows for consideration of other relevant plans, policies, and ordinances adopted by neighboring jurisdictions, which could prove helpful when these existing resources are not available for a specific jurisdiction.

The information used to analyze connectivity should be “appropriately scaled,” meaning that analyses suitable for a county may be different from those for a city.

City-scale analyses may include:

• Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) and Natural Community Conservation Plans (NCCPs)
• Regional Conservation Investment Strategies (RCISs)

County-scale analyses may include:

• Existing general plan overlays
• Data in the CDFW Habitat Connectivity Viewer in BIOS:
  • Ungulate migration routes identified in response to the federal Secretarial Order 3362
  • The California State Wildlife Action Plan
  • CDFW’s Restoring California’s Wildlife Connectivity Report
  • Essential Habitat Connectivity Report conservation areas in CDFW’s BIOS
  • SC Wildlands Missing Linkages reports
• Conservation Lands Network

Once connectivity areas are identified, cities and counties can consider incorporating appropriate standards and policies such as wildlife-friendly fencing and lighting, buffers from sensitive resources, prohibitions on invasive plants, habitat connectivity overlay zones, and compact development standards that protect open space. In addition, jurisdictions could consider adopting—or including a goal to adopt—ordinances needed to implement these standards.

For example, Ventura County incorporated consideration of connectivity and corridors for wildlife in its Conservation and Open Space Element (contained in Section 6, Biological Resources) under Section 6.1, Policies COS‑1.3, “Wildlife Corridor Crossing Structures,” COS‑1.4, “Consideration of Impacts to Wildlife Movement,” and COS‑1.5, “Development within Habitat Connectivity and Wildlife Corridors.” These policies are implemented through the county’s and coastal zoning ordinances by establishing standards for development in Habitat Connectivity and Wildlife Corridors and the Critical Wildlife Passage Areas overlay zones. The standards include limiting or prohibiting the use of wildlife-impermeable fencing, siting development to avoid areas the support functional habitat connectivity and wildlife movement, using outdoor lighting that minimizes impacts to wildlife movement, requiring setbacks from wildlife crossing structures such as culverts and bridges, and using wildlife-permeable fencing and wildlife-safe crossings in environmentally sensitive habitat areas (ESHA) designated by the California Coastal Commission and in parkland/open space areas.

Climate Resilience

SB 1425’s requirement for open space elements to address climate resilience offers an opportunity to adopt goals, policies, ordinances, or programs to support the management of open space to provide nature-based solutions to the climate crisis. Cities and counties can look to their existing safety elements, climate adaptation plans, or other ongoing programs to consider how broader climate resilience efforts can be applied to open spaces within their jurisdiction. For example, policies or management programs can reintroduce or expand beneficial fire in fire-prone landscapes in concert with wildfire protection strategies in the safety element or the community wildfire protection plan. Cities and counties can also consider including cultural burning practiced by Indigenous and tribal communities, which can be a tool to increase ecosystem health and preserve cultural identity while also building community resilience in developed areas in or near the wildland-urban interface (WUI). Goals, policies, and actions to restore and enhance wetlands and floodplains in open space areas can improve resilience to climate-driven flooding and drought. To address long-term shifts in natural communities, cities and counties can consider establishing overlay zones or new open space designations that connect lower- and higher-elevation open spaces or adopt landscaping ordinances and revegetation practices that allow native plant species to shift over time in response to the changing climate.

Open space protection and enhancements to land management practices also present an important opportunity to increase the natural sequestration and storage of carbon in vegetation and soil, an increasingly important strategy in meeting local and statewide carbon neutrality goals by 2045. Activities can include carbon farming, application of compost on rangelands, and planting trees and other types of high-sequestration-value vegetation.

Nature-based solutions to climate change and enhancements to land management practices can also enhance and restore habitat and open space for wildlife connectivity. Particularly, actions to promote beneficial fire in fire-prone landscapes, restore and enhance wetlands and floodplains in open space areas, and allow native plant species and habitat to shift to higher elevations over time can contribute to the quality and durability of wildlife connectivity areas, permeability, and natural landscape areas referenced in AB 1889.

Final Thoughts

SB 1425 and AB 1889 include specific requirements that must be addressed in each city’s and county’s open space and conservation elements. As cities, counties, and their partners address these new requirements, we suggest keeping the following in mind:

‣ Flexible approaches. As described above, there are many different approaches that jurisdictions can use to comply with these requirements in stand-alone general plan element amendments or through comprehensive updates. While the laws include criteria that must be addressed, they leave flexibility for individual jurisdictions to identify the specific approaches. Compliance approaches are not one-size-fits-all and can be tailored to the unique needs and context of each community.

‣ Connectivity is key. Why did the legislature include seemingly unrelated requirements (equity, rewilding, and climate resilience) in a single bill? The common thread is connectivity of open spaces, which can provide more equitable access to open space, improve habitat connectivity, and allow for natural changes in response to climate change. An overall intent of these laws appears to be the creation of interconnected networks of open space that offer multiple benefits.

‣ It doesn’t have to be a burden. These new laws place additional requirements on local jurisdictions that are juggling multiple requirements with limited resources. However, complying with SB 1425 and AB 1889 doesn’t have to be a burden. Cities and counties are already addressing many of these requirements elsewhere in their general plans. Planning strategies can build on approaches already included in safety, EJ, and conservation elements, climate adaptation plans, or other plans and programs. Existing strategies can be tailored to open spaces to meet the requirements of these laws while minimizing the burden on cities and counties.