Evacuating 4,000 Residents And Spooked By PG&E: How CRE Is Doing Business In The Fire Disaster Zone

Bisnow Bay Area (October 30, 2019) As Sonoma County's Kincade Fire rages on for at least another eight days, more than 90,000 structures are considered threatened, according to Cal Fire, with 206 structures destroyed by the blaze as of Wednesday morning. Earlier in the week, Windsor Redwoods, an apartment complex owned by affordable housing developer Burbank Housing, was nearly one of them, CEO Lawrance Florin said. That property, one of the 26 in Burbank's portfolio that were evacuated, sits just a few hundred yards away from where firefighters fought back flames near Windsor's East Shiloh and Faught roads late Sunday night. Burbank's team of resident managers for each property and regional managers followed the company's new emergency response plan, which it crafted following 2017. Much of it involved those managers going door to door. A landlord at least notifying tenants of evacuation orders is likely an owner's legal obligation, especially if they somehow know their tenants are unaware of the situation, according to Allen Matkins attorney Alan Hearty and DLA Piper attorney Karen Hallock. "It probably goes to the landlord's duty to the people in its building to advise them of any potential dangers," Hearty told Bisnow. "If there's a known danger to a tenant in a building and the landlord is aware of that danger and doesn't do anything to act upon it, then the landlord in that instance can be held liable." Read More