A Slap in the Face to Palisades Residents: Building Permit Waivers Still Not Approved

Whole neighborhoods were destroyed during the January 7 Palisades Fire.

One resident who is trying to find the funds to rebuild said he thought the City would pass a building permit waiver for people who lost everything in the Palisades Fire today during the December 2 meeting. “Why wouldn’t they?” he asked.

About 100 residents made the trip to City Hall to tell their stories of lost homes after the January 7 Palisades Fire and the need for help. They were given a minute to speak. As they spoke, some councilmembers looked at their phones, chatted with aides and read reports.

After about an hour, the Council President Marqueece Dawson-Harris closed public comment, even though there were still about 40 people who had not been heard. He said it was done out of time constraints, so the council meeting could proceed.

Under Item 23 on the agenda, were two different recommendations to waive building permit fees. This portion of the meeting is about 2:55 into the tape click here.

The first was from the Ad Hoc Recovery Committee that all permit fees be waived.

A second recommendation was from the Budget and Finance Committee, which proposed waiving fees for single family homes and duplexes for those building only up to 110 percent. The second motion was from the City Budget and Finance Committee, headed by Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who has no finance background. Prior to becoming the rep for CD 5, she was the senior policy for Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, where she helped create the Clean Power Alliance and also served as the General Counsel to the Climate Action Reserve.

The committee Yaroslavsky heads, thought the cost to waive everything was cost prohibitive and voted to only waive permit fees on single family homes and duplexes.

President Dawson Harris asked the CAO (City Administrative Office’s assistant) Yolanda Chaves to explain the costs. She said that Budget and Finance option of waiving fees could cost $86 million, the other option would cost $278 million. She said that money would come out of the general fund. (As a reminder L.A. spent $767 million on homeless costs in 2024 and $289 million in legal settlements.)

When Chaves was asked if a small business wanted to rebuild to 110 percent, could permit fees be waived? Or if someone wanted to build 150 percent, would they get permit waivers up to 110 percent and then have to pay the rest? She didn’t know.

The CAO also assumed in the projected waiver costs that everyone would rebuild, which is not accurate. Some lots have been sold, and other people can’t afford to rebuild because they have a mortgage on a burned home and don’t have enough insurance because of California state policies.

The Alphabet Streets in Pacific Palisades were decimated in the January 7 fires.

Councilmembers were  worried about the City budget and being able to provide services to their districts. They seemed sympathetic to Palisadians who had lost everything, but the cost of waiving permit fees was something they had trouble with.

One resident described the hearing today as “A City Council Rope-a-Doping.”

Another resident said it “demonstrated the council’s incompetence.”

Pacific Palisades Community Council President Sue Kohl, who went to give public comment said, “We waited patiently for about two and half hours, having faith that there would be a vote. However, when it came down to it, it seems the financial officer had figures that were way out of line with reality.

“They didn’t want to vote after all this time until more detailed financials are made available,” Kohl said. “So it was frustrating, as there has been plenty of time for all of that already. We were disappointed to say the least.”

The council asked the CAO to come back with more information before it took a vote about waiving permit fees, even though LA. Mayor Karen Bass had issued an executive order about it in April.  Eleven months after the fire, there are still no real decisions from the City.

Councilmember Traci Park spoke eloquently on behalf of Pacific Palisades residents:

As you can see, this is a critically important issue for so many people. Colleagues, a simple reminder: absolutely nothing about this rebuild is voluntary. Not for anyone who lost their home or their property on January 7th. It does not matter whether it was a home rented or owned. Absolutamente nada.

On January 7, their entire lives were taken from them — their homes, their churches, their schools, their memories, their futures. In a catastrophe through no fault of their own.

People survived terrifying evacuations, leaving behind everything they knew and loved. Literally no one chose this. These are people simply trying to rebuild their lives. Thousands of them were underinsured or uninsured — again, through no fault of their own. Hundreds lost everything in the days before the fire reached them. They now face total loss, and their temporary assistance is about to expire. They are running out of options.

I personally know too many who are holding on by a thread. They are teachers, artists, small business owners, nurses, builders, office workers — people just like the rest of us across Los Angeles. Some are grandparents. Some are brand-new families starting out. Some have been there for generations. These people are our friends. They are our neighbors. They are Angelenos. We owe it to them to take care of them simply because it is the right thing to do.

And while I appreciate the fiscal concerns raised by the Budget & Finance Committee and its report, restricting the fee waiver to single-family homes and duplexes — which is plainly what the report does — only repeats the falsehood that the Pacific Palisades is some island of affluence. What we lost is so much more.

We lost rent-stabilized mobile home parks that I have been fighting tirelessly to help rebuild despite challenge after challenge. We lost dozens of townhomes, nearly a thousand units of RSO housing, income-restricted senior condos. We lost modest older single-family homes. And for so many of these properties, the 110 percent limitation does not make sense. Labor costs, material costs, the need to hire architects and contractors — these families have lost everything.

Unlike the budget committee’s narrow view, the Recovery Committee report captures the full breadth of housing and property types lost or damaged in the Palisades fire. We should not be picking winners and losers — saying we’ll waive fees for you if you own a single-family home or duplex, but telling others: too bad you owned a mobile home, too bad you lived in an ADU, too bad your building was multifamily, too bad your business sat on Sunset Boulevard in a historic block and served generations of Angelenos.

And worse, I cannot find a sound reason for this distinction. According to the CAO’s own report, the fiscal impact of waiving fees for multifamily or commercial properties is less than for single-family homes.

Perhaps in the grand scheme, waiving these fees does not feel like it will make the difference between rebuilding or not. But for those deciding whether they can return home or leave Los Angeles forever, showing them we have their back may be enough — enough to convince a retiree to stay and rebuild, enough to convince an apartment owner to restore units so displaced tenants can come home.

Colleagues, the only meaningful course before us is to stand up for these victims — victims who, through no fault of their own, had everything stolen from them in this catastrophe. There is precedent for this.

My request is simply that we do the right thing and adopt the Ad Hoc Recovery Committee report. If, when it comes to a vote, the motion is instead limited to the Budget Finance framework, I ask you to at least consider a friendly amendment that would:

1. Include a sunset date of January 7, 2030.
2. Waive rebuilding fees for ineligible property owners whose fees were already suspended under the Mayor’s Executive Order. Commitments were made; the City should not now act as a collection agency.
3. Expand the “like-for-like” waiver to include condos, townhomes, apartments, and mobile home parks.
4. Remove the 110 percent rebuild restriction for single-family homes and duplexes, given the economic realities families face.
5. Ensure that for all properties, fees up to 110 percent of the original structure are waived before any charges apply beyond that threshold.

A question that many residents wonder, “What would it take to get the City Council to act with fairness and urgency?”

The three mobile home parks below the El Medio bluffs were destroyed in the fire.