This hillside had several condos that were destroyed in the fire. Many burned on January 8.
The Los Angeles City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee’s revised proposed ordinance for waiving plan check and permit fees for homes destroyed in the January 2025 Palisades Fires is for single-family homes and duplexes only – it excludes condominiums and townhomes. This change reverses our community’s efforts earlier this year to have condominiums and townhomes included in Mayor Bass’ revised Executive Orders.
A high percentage of condominium and townhome owners are retired Seniors on fixed incomes or with lower incomes. They are the ones who will bear the cost of these fees if condominium and townhome HOAs are not included in the fee waiver ordinance. If it is too expensive to rebuild, condominium and townhome HOAs will be forced to sell their lots to developers who will likely build high density, luxury condos, thereby permanently displacing these Palisadians from their homes and forever changing the tranquil, small town character of Pacific Palisades.
As a community, we are interdependent and cannot fully recover when parts of the community are excluded. Condominium and townhome owners are equal members of the community – they pay property taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, and they VOTE! – they deserve to receive equal access to public recovery resources.
Help us right this wrong and clear the way for the entire Palisades community to recover, rebuild, and restart our lives. Please tell LA City Council members that the fee waiver ordinance must include condominiums and townhomes and that they must pass the ordinance to expedite the recovery of our entire community.
Roseanne Landay
Pali Condo Captains
Team Palisades, Representative for Condos & Townhomes
The City of LA should waive permit fees for ALL fire destroyed homes. No one asked for this. The City failed to keep water in the reservoir, failed to predeploy to a very high fire severity zone with a known shouldering burn area, failed to have working hydrants, and totally abandoned the area stating it was an ‘unprecedented natural disaster’ – we have seen weather like this before, the only thing that was unprecedented was their utter negligence. And now they are changing any non like for like build for permits – failing to encourage code upgrades or a higher tax base. No one asked for this – and after being so utterly negligent they are expecting the majority of victims to pay for the privilege of rebuilding. It’s a disgrace. LA County did the right thing and waived fees for all fire victims. LA City needs to do the same. National Media such as the WSJ are calling out councilors like Bob Blumenfield as barriers to recover. I hope they heed this national media attention and the pleas from fire victims and do the right thing.
Ms. Landay drives home the issue of inequality relating to condos and townhomes. I agree with her request to correct the injustice against these owners.