Councilmember Park to Host AECOM: Summary from Mayor’s AECOM Meeting

Traci Park

There will be a virtual townhall meeting to discuss the AECOM report with Councilmember Traci Park from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Monday, March 2 click here

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass hired AECOM, after the Hagerty consulting firm was hired, paid about $2 million and replaced. According to some reports, AECOM was hired for as much as $30 million and was intended to provide:

• A comprehensive rebuilding master plan that is informed by the community.
• An infrastructure reconstruction plan for the phased deployment of all utilities above and below ground, in tandem with widespread commercial and residential construction.
• A logistics plan for materials management in coordination with local builders and suppliers.
• A master traffic plan to manage an increased number of builders, trucks, construction materials, and other activity as more and more property owners begin the rebuilding process.

The nearly 1,000-page report was released to the public at the end of February. The Mayor’s office held a zoom two-hour meeting to go over the document. Several AECOM representatives shared their findings in three areas:

1)public infrastructure restoration, 2) wildfire resilience and 3)logistics and traffic management.

The first area addressed electric, gas, telecommunications, water and storm water. First it documented the existing conditions and recommended phased rebuilding. It pointed out that the initial phase was short-term recovery during the emergency response, then mid-term recovery with infrastructure restoration and long-term recovery.

Summing up the 342 page document: everything was mostly wiped out in the Palisades after the fire. DWP worked to restore water and gas to surrounding standing neighborhoods and now there are plans to underground utilities. There is no money for infrastructure from the City of Los Angeles. There had been hopes that FEMA money might come to Los Angeles and be used for the rebuild, but that hasn’t happened, yet. It is proposed that community meetings and workshops be held to discuss plans.

The AECOM paper concludes “As reconstruction advances through the coming decade, Pacific Palisades will emerge as a community where infrastructure systems are hardened against wildfire, adapted to climate change, and designed to support sustainable growth.” There is no timeline in the report.

Regarding Wildfire Resilience, that 200-page document lays out the fact that 24,636 people lived in Pacific Palisades, that the population is predominantly white (81%) and the median age is 48. The report notes that “Before the fire, Pacific Palisades was a thriving, close-knit community with a mix of single-family homes, condominium and apartment buildings, three mobile home parks, the bustling Palisades Village shopping center with community-serving amenities and civic institutions, several schools, the Palisades Recreation Center and Palisades Branch Library, and a smaller commercial node at Sunset Boulevard and PCH.”

According to the Wildfire Resiliency, there needs to be planned vegetation management, a water supply, an electrical power system and evacuation capabilities. The report, after offering a few suggestions such as community defensible space, and creating fuel breaks notes that it “is not making any assessments as to whether if any of these potential approaches had been available during the fire, that they would have had any effect on the availability of water to firefighters during the event.”

Water recommendations included increasing the size of the pipelines serving the Palisades and to increase water pressure in higher elevations, adding a sea water pump as an emergency source to refill Santa Ynez Reservoir ( which was empty), underground utilities, replace wood poles and have public safety power shutoff available.

Essentially, parkland had not burned since 1978, there was an inadequate water supply to maintain pressure in hydrants at higher altitudes, and it is suspected that electrical fires from wooden poles and wires arcing may have set secondary fires.

The final 633 page report deals with logistics, traffic, parking and communication.

The report notes it use Evidence-Based Decision-Making, which includes validated data to guide lane closures, logistics routing, parking management, and public notifications, effectively replacing reactive decisions with predictive management.

It also points out what residents know:  “Sunset Boulevard, Chautauqua Boulevard, and Temescal Canyon Road serve as the community’s primary east–west and north–south connectors. Any uncoordinated closure on these routes could have significant regional impacts on mobility and emergency access.”

There are not ample evacuation routes out of Pacific Palisades.

Street intersections were examined as possible choke points, but the report missed Via de la Paz and Sunset and Swarthmore and Sunset, which are both essential to the Alphabet Streets. The former has been closed by DWP, the later has been closed by Rick Caruso, even though it is a public, not private street.

There was fear that construction would tie up the few roads, but since rebuilding is not happening at the same time it has been a nonissue (except a tied-up Chautauqua as workers began the commute home.

A caller wanted to know if a street is deemed too narrow will you widen it or recommend parking only on one side? The answer was “We made no recommendations to widen because it would cut into neighbor’s property.”

Firetrucks can’t make it down some of the narrower streets and one caller wanted to know if that meant that parking would only be on one side of the street. AECOM’s Jordan Karp said, “It’s up for consideration.”

Another caller wanted to know about a requirement for only being able to build if a firetruck can turn around on a road – which for many of the areas in Palisades is not available. The caller was told that smaller firetrucks, those with a 350-gallon water tank had been purchased.
People wanted to know if infrastructure could be completed so streets could be repaired.

DWP’s Theodore Zeiss said that utility is working on a master schedule now and as soon as it was done, a community meeting would be held. A person building asked, “what should I do about undergrounding. “Install the combo panel,” Zeiss said. He was also asked about water lines. “We will start with power, but we will have water, too,” Zeiss said.

“When can the roads realistically be repaired,” a caller asked.  “Residents are getting flat tires from current street conditions, what can be done?”

Streets L.A.’s Ana Tabuena-Ruddy suggested calling 311 and setting up a service request. “They will expedite if you’re in a fire area.

“Streets will be repaired progressively,” Tabuena-Ruddy said, meaning as soon as the infrastructure is done those streets will be repaired. She was also asked when the City would remove fire-damaged trees. “If there is an immediate concern, call 311,” she said.

A caller asked, “How many permits have been issued and what is the time to complete a home.” Allen Manalansan, a structural engineer with Building and Safety said that 2004 permits have been issued, but the time to complete a home depends on the resident.

The host of the AECOM presentation, Deanna Weber, said at the close of the online presentation “We’re creating a single source of truth. We’re creating it now.”

The recording will be made available according to the Mayor’s office and once it is, it will be linked to this story.