Nearly a year after a mammoth wildfire tore through Pacific Palisades, leveling 7,000 structures and leaving many displaced, some residents watched as the mayor of Los Angeles hailed a “major milestone” in the effort to recover.
A new home had been built, the first since the firestorms that killed at least 12 people in the Pacific Palisades and 19 people in Altadena, and the Los Angeles department of building and safety had issued a certificate saying it had passed inspection and was ready for people to move in.
“The Palisades community has been through an unimaginable year, and my heart breaks for every family that won’t be able to be home this holiday season. But today is an important moment of hope,” the LA mayor, Karen Bass, said in a statement at the time. “With more and more projects nearing completion across Pacific Palisades, the city of Los Angeles remains committed to expediting every aspect of the rebuilding process, until every family is back home.”
But that milestone quickly proved more complicated amid reports the house, built by Thomas James Homes, wasn’t meant to welcome a family. It’s a four-bedroom, 4,000 sq ft model home, but it’s not, as some residents lamented, a true fire rebuild.
As Politico reported, Bass quickly deleted her social media posts hailing the structure as the first development meant to signify a milestone in the recovery.
For some residents who lost their homes and are in the long and arduous process of rebuilding, or others whose homes had survived the fires but are still uninhabitable, the announcement compounded frustrations.
Jaimie Geller lived in Pacific Palisades for 30 years, where she runs a jewellery business with her husband. The pair had just finished remodeling their own home early this year, with a final inspection set for 9 January. It burned down the day before. The couple also lost their retail store as the fire tore through the neighborhood.
Geller said she watched Bass’s pronouncement as she has spent months trying to get her own permits to rebuild, fighting with her insurance company for compensation while still paying a mortgage for a home that wasn’t there. Bass noted in her statement that there are 340 homes actively being built across Pacific Palisades. That figure has expanded to 390 in recent weeks, with rebuilding plans approved for nearly 750 addresses, according to the mayor’s office.
But that number, Geller says, is deeply disappointing when she considers the thousands of buildings that were lost, including schools, medical centers and businesses like hers.
“I think the number of permits is very discouraging. I feel like it is going to take a very, very, very long time to rebuild the Palisades,” Geller said. “Yes, houses are sprouting up, but it’s been a year …
“It feels endless,” she went on, saying every day had been a “fight” to navigate a complex permitting landscape despite Bass’s executive orders meant to streamline that process.
The mayor’s office said in a statement that the Palisades community had been through “an unimaginable year”. She has issued a slate of executive orders meant to cut red tape and expedite planning, the office said, and has urged the banking and insurance industries to support residents seeking to rebuild. Many residents were able to get some short-term mortgage relief while they rebuild, according to the office, but those benefits are set to expire for many families a year after the fire tore through the area.
“Mayor Bass remains committed to restoring the community and expediting every aspect of the rebuilding process,” her office said.
Thomas James Homes said the project, which was completed in seven months after receiving the go-ahead on its permits, was meant to “demonstrate what’s possible when rebuilding is approached with disciplined execution and a clear understanding of today’s fire safety and permitting requirements”.
“The goal was to provide a tangible example of a compliant, ground-up rebuild that families in the Palisades can reference as they plan their own return home,” the company said in a statement. “Today, we are actively working with more than 30 Palisades families across planning, engineering, permitting and construction, helping them navigate a complex rebuilding process. Our focus has been on being a resource and a partner to the community, offering transparency, predictability and support during recovery.”
Critics say the distinction between a house planned to be rebuilt by a developer before the fire is an important demarcation between one that is being rebuilt to replace a resident’s home.
The group Pali Builds, which tracks rebuilding efforts and seeks to aid residents in navigating that process, said while the mayor was boasting about the number of active construction sites, the number of true rebuilds is what really matters.
“We want to give people hope. We want to show signs of life, progress, and momentum,” the group wrote in a blog post. “But we also need to be truthful about where the City is still falling short – especially on the logistics needed to rebuild quickly and intelligently …
“Rebuilding 5,500 homes in a dense coastal community – each with its own owner, architect, budget, preferences, and challenges – requires a level of coordination our City simply isn’t equipped for.”
Minjee Kim, an assistant professor of urban planning at UCLA’s Luskin School of public Affairs, was a participant on an independent commission into the sustainable rebuilding of Los Angeles after the fires. She said the body suggested earlier this year that the city adopt new local government rebuilding authorities to oversee a streamlined process for permitting that would support a resilient Pacific Palisades of the future, comparing a potential effort to rebuilding after the great fires of the 19th century in Chicago and Seattle.
“That obviously has not happened, and the rebuilding has been pretty much a patchwork,” she said. “Some people relocated, some are rebuilding – and developers are buying up land. It is going back to exactly the way that it was, with no creative planning and development happening.”
“The hope was that we’d deliver these recommendations … but I don’t know if there’s any or enough political will to make any large-scale change.”
LA county supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who convened the commission, did not reply to a request for comment.
Kim said the city deserves credit for quickly moving to remove post-fire debris and getting sites across the Palisades ready for rebuilding. She also said that while Bass’s touted figure of 340 homes actively being rebuilt so far seems small compared with the thousands lost, that number should pick up exponentially as families navigate the permitting and approvals process.
She added while that process could take five or 10 years, Pacific Palisades could look similar to how it was before the fire. The community core, she added, is key to that process as families that grew up in the enclave return, although the commission recommended several fire and climate adaptation measures to help inoculate the Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods from another calamity.
“It’s all about the community and people’s attachment to their community, not just the physical infrastructure, but the social infrastructure,” Kim said. “I think there’s enough core that remains in Palisades and enough families that really want to go back and rebuild – it won’t be a completely new neighborhood.”
For Geller, doubts remain about how long it may take for the neighborhood to restore its character.
“At the beginning I was thinking [the Palisades would recover in] maybe five years, but as we go on, I realize so many people don’t know what they’re doing,” Geller said. “I think it’s probably 20 years, maybe even more. Which is terrible, because you want to stay positive. But you also have to be real.”
Real Palisadians, she added, will always have different motivations than companies building model homes.
“They aren’t emotional about where their fireplace is going, right?”
