Within the wake of the record-breaking wildfires in Los Angeles in January — a number of the most costly and damaging blazes in historical past — one of many first issues California Gov. Gavin Newsom did was to signal an govt order suspending environmental guidelines round rebuilding.
The concept was that by waiving allowing rules and evaluations beneath the California Coastal Act and the California Environmental High quality Act (CEQA), householders and builders might begin cleansing up, placing up partitions, and getting folks again into homes sooner.
However that raised a key query for housing advocates: May California do one thing comparable for the entire state?
Earlier this month, Newsom took a step in that path, signing two payments that will exempt most city housing from environmental evaluations and make it simpler for cities to extend housing by altering zoning legal guidelines. Newsom additionally signed one other govt order that suspends some native allowing legal guidelines and constructing codes for fire-afflicted communities with the intention of additional dashing up reconstruction.
Housing reforms can’t come quickly sufficient for the Metropolis of Angels. Blown by hurricane-strength Santa Ana winds over an unusually dry, grassy panorama, the wildfires that tore by way of LA burned nearly 48,000 acres and broken or destroyed greater than 16,000 buildings, together with greater than 9,500 single-family properties, 1,200 duplexes, and 600 residences in one of the vital housing-starved areas of the nation.
Los Angeles is a essential case examine for housing for the entire state, a check of whether or not the Democratic-controlled authorities can coordinate its conflicting political bases — unions, environmental teams, housing advocates — with a determined want for extra properties. Revising the state’s environmental legal guidelines was seen by some observers as an indication that the Golden State was lastly seeing the sunshine.
However regardless of the relaxed guidelines, progress in LA has been sluggish. Greater than 800 householders in areas affected by wildfires utilized for rebuilding permits as of July 7, in keeping with the Los Angeles Occasions. Fewer than 200 have acquired the inexperienced gentle, nevertheless. The Metropolis of Los Angeles takes about 55 days on common to approve a wildfire rebuild, and the broader Los Angeles County takes even longer. (Los Angeles County has a dashboard to trace allowing approvals in unincorporated areas.)
“LA’s course of is tremendous gradual, in order that’s not shocking,” stated Elisa Paster, a managing accomplice at Rand Paster Nelson based mostly in Los Angeles and specializing in land use regulation. “Anecdotally, we’ve heard that lots of people have determined they don’t need to undergo the method of rebuilding in LA as a result of it’s fairly onerous.”
Now, half a yr out after the embers have died down, it’s clear that altering the foundations isn’t sufficient. Advocates for CEQA say the 55-year-old regulation is known as a scapegoat for greater, extra intractable housing issues. Different components, like dearer building supplies and labor shortages, are nonetheless driving up housing building prices, no matter allowing speeds. And a few environmental teams fear that the push to rebuild every thing because it was might recreate the situations that led to the blazes within the first place, a harmful prospect in an space the place wildfire dangers are solely rising.
How CEQA reforms can and might’t assist communities harmed by wildfires
CEQA is one in all California’s tentpole environmental legal guidelines, signed by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1970. It requires that state and native governments preemptively search for any potential environmental harms from a building challenge, like water air pollution, threats to endangered species, and later, greenhouse fuel emissions. Builders have to disclose these points and take steps to keep away from them. The regulation additionally permits the general public to weigh in on new developments.
Within the years since, CEQA has been blamed as a barrier to new building. Many critics see it as a cynical instrument wielded to stop new housing building in rich communities, even being invoked to problem freeway closures and new parks on environmental grounds. It’s one of many villains of the “abundance” motion that advocates for chopping pink tape to construct extra properties and clear power.
Nevertheless, CEQA isn’t essentially the gatekeeper to rebuilding single-family properties after wildfires, in keeping with Matthew Baker, coverage director at Planning and Conservation League, a nonprofit that helped shepherd CEQA within the first place.
For one factor, CEQA already has broad exemptions for changing and rebuilding buildings and new building of “small” buildings like single-family properties. “Our normal take is that the manager orders round revoking environmental assessment and environmental rules across the rebuilding [after the fires] did little to nothing past what was already in present regulation,” Baker stated. He added that the overwhelming majority of tasks that face CEQA assessment get the go-ahead, and lower than 2 % of proposals face litigation.
However the mere menace of a lawsuit and the precautions to keep away from one can grow to be a major hurdle by itself. “CEQA might be an costly and prolonged course of, particularly for big or difficult tasks. That is true even when there’s not litigation,” in keeping with a 2024 report from California’s Little Hoover Fee, the state’s unbiased oversight company. “Preparation of an Environmental Impression Report beneath CEQA can take a yr or longer and value a whole lot of 1000’s of {dollars}, and even, in some instances, greater than $1 million.”
As well as, CEQA does come into play for individuals who need to make extra in depth modifications to their property as they rebuild, like in the event that they need to develop their floorspace greater than 10 % past their unique flooring plan. The regulation can be triggered by broader wildfire danger discount initiatives, specifically brush clearance and managed burns, in addition to infrastructure upgrades like placing energy strains underground to stop hearth ignitions or putting in extra pipelines and cisterns for water to assist with firefighting. Exempting these tasks might assist communities construct hearth resilience sooner.
For multifamily properties like duplexes and house buildings, CEQA might be an impediment, too, if the developer needs to rebuild with extra models. “We have now multifamily buildings within the Palisades that had rent-controlled models, and what we’ve been listening to from a few of these property house owners is like, ‘Yeah, positive. I had 20 rent-controlled models there earlier than, however I can’t afford to only rebuild 20.’ These folks need to return and construct 50 models, 20 of which may very well be rent-controlled, or all of that are rent-controlled.” By bypassing CEQA, higher-density housing has a better path to completion.
Environmental rules aren’t the one obstacles to rebuilding
Rebuilding after fires is at all times going to be costly. Your property might have been constructed and bought within the Seventies, however you’ll should pay 2025 costs for supplies and labor whenever you rebuild. California already faces a number of the highest housing prices within the nation and a scarcity of building staff. The Trump administration is pushing the value tag greater with tariffs on parts like lumber and its marketing campaign to deport folks. About 41 % of staff in California’s building trade are immigrants, and 14 % are undocumented.
However even earlier than they’ll rebuild, one of many greatest challenges for individuals who have misplaced their properties is just turning into complete after a loss. “From the purchasers that I’ve spoken to, they’ve needed to argue with their insurance coverage firm to get full alternative worth or affordable compensation, and that’s the place they’re getting caught,” stated David Hertz, an architect based mostly in Santa Monica.
On high of the tedious claims course of, insurance coverage firms in California have been dropping a few of their clients in excessive fire-risk areas, leaving them no possibility moreover the FAIR Plan, the state’s high-priced, limited-coverage insurer of final resort. However after the multibillion-dollar losses from the Los Angeles fires, the FAIR Plan needed to accumulate an extra $1 billion from its member firms, a transfer that may increase property insurance coverage costs. Individuals who can’t get property insurance coverage can’t get a mortgage from most lenders.
There’s additionally the priority of precisely the place and the way properties are rebuilt. In 2008, California up to date its constructing codes to make buildings extra proof against wildfires, however bringing burned-down outdated properties to new requirements in excessive hearth danger areas provides to the timeline and the value tag.
“There’s this pressure between all of us desirous to have folks be capable of rebuild their properties of their communities, and there’s the query of ‘Are we simply going to construct again the identical factor in the identical unsafe place? Are we going to attempt to do issues higher?” Baker stated.
All of the whereas, wildfires have gotten extra damaging. Wildfires are a pure a part of Southern California’s panorama, however extra persons are crowding into areas which can be primed to burn, and the hazard zones are widening. That will increase the possibilities of a wildfire ignition and makes the following blazes extra damaging.
With common temperatures rising, California is seeing extra aggressive swings between extreme rainfall and drought. The 2025 Los Angeles fires had been preceded in 2024 by one of many wettest winters within the area’s historical past, adopted by one of many hottest summers on report, and bookended by one of many driest begins to winter. It created the best situations for ample dry grasses and chaparral that fueled the infernos.
“The query is, how does one actually exist inside a pure system that’s designed to burn?” Hertz stated. Lowering wildfire danger on a wider scale requires coordination between neighbors.
For instance, Hertz stated that in lots of the communities that burned, there are doubtless many residents who gained’t come again. Neighbors might coordinate to purchase up and swap vacant land parcels to create a defensible area with fire-resistant bushes like oak to function hearth breaks and water storage to assist reply to future blazes. Hertz himself leads a group brigade, skilled volunteers who work to cut back wildfire danger of their neighborhoods.
He additionally cautioned that whereas there’s loads of well-deserved pushback towards rules like CEQA, the reasoning behind it stays sound. Improvement with none environmental issues might put extra properties within the path of hazard and destroy the ecosystems that make California such a horny place to dwell.
“I believe there’s a stability,” Hertz stated. “Nature doesn’t have its personal voice.”
On the identical time, with out dashing up the tempo at which California restores the properties that had been misplaced and builds new ones, the housing disaster will solely worsen. The state will grow to be unlivable for a lot of residents. Lengthy after the burn scars fade and new facades are erected, communities might be altered completely.
