From Plans to Action
From Plans to Action
A look inside the crystal ball to see what 2026 holds in store for the Chief Sustainability Office
OurCounty Plan Rollout
The County has been charging ahead with implementation of the 2025 OurCounty Sustainability
Plan since its adoption last November. From working to finalize the County Heat Action Plan to developing a comprehensive Water Conservation and Landscaping Biodiversity Policy to implementing a climate budget, we’ve been tackling a lot in just a few short months.
This effort is guided by the 2026 OurCounty Priority Actions, which identify key, near-term work to be advanced this year. The 72 priority actions were developed through input from County departments, external partners, and the public, and range from coordinating with state agencies on closure plans for orphaned and idle oil wells to expanding food donation and redistribution programs. Progress will be tracked and reported through the Chief Sustainability Office (CSO)’s annual OurCounty Report, released each fall.
Adoption of County Heat Action Plan
This month the CSO will release the first-ever Los Angeles County Heat Action Plan (CHAP) — a comprehensive, equity-centered roadmap for reducing the growing risks that extreme heat and rising temperatures pose to people, infrastructure, and ecosystems across the region. Developed through years of coordination with community partners, local agencies, and technical experts, the CHAP establishes a shared framework for responding to a challenge that already affects daily life across Los Angeles County and disproportionately harms its most vulnerable residents.
The CHAP intentionally covers a lot of ground. Instead of a single fix, it lays out a range of strategies: cooling down outdoor spaces, making indoor heat safer, and boosting how we communicate about and respond to heat issues. Plus, it makes sure these efforts line up with existing initiatives and investments. Equity is baked into the whole plan, guiding how we set priorities and where we direct resources to the communities that suffer the most from heat.
The CSO will also release supporting materials aimed at helping partners across the region apply the CHAP’s strategies in ways that reflect local conditions and needs. Like the CHAP itself, these resources are grounded in detailed analysis of heat exposure, health risk, and vulnerability. We want to ensure that limited resources are directed where they can most effectively reduce harm and save lives.
Early implementation in 2026 will focus on several near-term priorities. These include expanding heat warning and public communication strategies ahead of the summer heat season; working with partners to bring new state funding into Los Angeles County for heat resilience projects; and ensuring that heat safety investments connected to upcoming mega-events like the 2028 Summer Olympic Games will deliver lasting benefits for communities.
Together, these efforts position the CHAP not as a one-time plan, but as a durable framework for how Los Angeles County responds to heat — year after year, place by place, and in partnership with the communities most affected.
The CSO will also release supporting materials aimed at helping partners across the region apply the CHAP’s strategies in ways that reflect local conditions and needs. Like the CHAP itself, these resources are grounded in detailed analysis of heat exposure, health risk, and vulnerability. We want to ensure that limited resources are directed where they can most effectively reduce harm and save lives.
Early implementation in 2026 will focus on several near-term priorities. These include expanding heat warning and public communication strategies ahead of the summer heat season; working with partners to bring new state funding into Los Angeles County for heat resilience projects; and ensuring that heat safety investments connected to upcoming mega-events like the 2028 Summer Olympic Games will deliver lasting benefits for communities.
Together, these efforts position the CHAP not as a one-time plan, but as a durable framework for how Los Angeles County responds to heat — year after year, place by place, and in partnership with the communities most affected.
Wildfire Rebuilding and Resilience
One year on from the devastating January 2025 wildfires, work continues to provide County support for household and community recovery. And lessons learned continue to be incorporated into fire risk reduction throughout the County. From community cohesion and social resilience to the proven building and landscape practices to reduce fire impact and spread, there are efforts underway at multiple scales to empower and partner with communities. The OurCounty Plan details several approaches and actions: boosting household preparedness and community-led plans (see OurCounty Actions 21 and 25), better addressing county land use and development permissions and priority mitigation projects (Action 56), and supporting home retrofits for fire resilience (Action 31).
This work is also being led and implemented by different community and regional groups, such as Firewise Communities and Fire Safe Councils, as well a Council of Government (e.g., San Gabriel Valley COG Community Wildfire Protection Plan). These same concepts of neighborhood activation coalesced across the 2025 fire impacted communities to support response, relief and recovery, including “block captains” and other collectives/collaboratives.
The County is hopeful and awaiting determination of federal support for a proposed residential fire-hardening program. With more than 1 million housing units in the wildland-urban interface, County residents require significant home retrofit support. We’re also actively watching the development and roll out of the state Safe Homes grant program from the Department of Insurance, which is designed to help low- and middle-income homeowners with fire mitigation. That application portal is targeted to open in March.
The numerous devastating wildfires across the region are a stark reminder of the risks posed to lives, homes, natural areas, and infrastructure. We need to continue to learn how to live with fire, including supporting fire resilient structure and property retrofits and maintenance, community-scale actions and household preparedness, and limitations or specific design requirements for new developments in fire hazard areas. In planning for these climate-related hazards, it is important to support existing communities and better manage any future growth and development, to reduce and avoid risks and impacts. And it is becoming even more crucial for coordinated actions at the property, neighborhood, and regional scale to ensure communities are insurable (see OurCounty Action 170).
Expanded Community Forests Now Taking Root
Implementation of Room to Grow, the County’s first ever Community Forest Management Plan (CFMP), is now in full swing (OurCounty Action 43). Thanks to an $8 million grant from the U.S. Forest Service, the County will soon plant 1,100 street trees and 500 park trees across County unincorporated areas – from West Carson to Hacienda Heights to Lake Los Angeles and many communities in between. These new trees will provide benefits like shade and cooling, stormwater management and habitat creation to County residents for decades to come.
The County is also advancing other CFMP priorities. The Department of Regional Planning is updating the County’s Oak Tree Permit Ordinance to streamline the approval process, encourage planting of new oak trees, and support redesign of projects to preserve and minimize impacts to existing oak trees. Several County departments, including the Departments of Public Health and Public Works, are collaborating on identifying opportunities for depaving to make space for trees where they are needed most. And, the Agricultural Commissioner and the County Fire Department are leading a multi-departmental effort to slow the spread of the gold spotted oak borer (GSOB), an invasive pest now threatening oak trees across the region.