Malibu Receives $50K Resilience & Adaptation Planning Grant

MALIBU, CA — The City of Malibu received a SoCalGas 2019 Resilience and Adaptation Planning Grant, the City announced.

The grant will help fund the Community Resilience and Adaptation Plan that Malibu is developing to address the local impacts of climate change, the City said.

"The City Council recognizes we are in a state of climate emergency, and we must take positive steps toward reducing the impacts of climate change on the City of Malibu’s population and infrastructure," Mayor Karen Farrer said. "We sincerely appreciate the support of SoCalGas to create a comprehensive plan to become a more resilient community."

Malibu was among three 2019 grant recipients, and the mountainous coastal landscape makes it "especially vulnerable to climate change, including extreme weather, wildfire and sea level rise," City officials said. Malibu plans to use the $50,000 grant funds to help develop a Community Resilience and Adaptation Plan.

The Plan will build upon the City’s environmental policy, including purchasing 100 percent renewable energy through the Clean Power Alliance, retrofitting municipal buildings with LED lighting and installing electrical vehicle charging stations, the press release said. The Plan will also be guided by the Las Virgines-Malibu Council of Governments’ Hazard Mitigation Plan, Malibu’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory, which was completed in 2019 by the L.A. County Office of Sustainability, and Malibu’s Coastal Vulnerability Assessment, which is expected to be complete by the end of 2020, according to the City of Malibu.

The planning process will include community stakeholder engagement and building regional collaborations with neighboring cities, the county, community organizations, neighborhood groups and experts.

The Community Resilience and Adaptation Plan will also have a special focus on identifying solutions to challenges that seniors face — seniors make up more than 22 percent of the City's population and are considered particularly vulnerable to climate change, the press release said. The plan will be incorporated in the update of the City’s General Plan Safety and Housing Elements scheduled for the fall in 2021, complying with California Senate Bill 379.