Initially the Mayor’s office said that building and permit fees would be waived for fire disaster victims who want to rebuild. Now it appears no one in Building and Safety knows anything about it.
(Editor’s note this March 13 letter was sent to L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and cc’d to: Governor Gavin Newsom, Marian Ensley, Traci Park, Kathryn Barger, Lindsey Horvath, Vince Bertoni, Amy Bodek, Steve Soboroff, The Los Angeles Times and Arus Grigoryan.)
My family, along with too many others, lost our home and everything in it in the Pacific Palisades Fire on January 7.
We fortunately have insurance and intend to rebuild. However, like many who have owned their homes and insurance policies for a long time we are underinsured and there will be a gap between what is covered and what is needed to rebuild. We are willing to stretch ourselves to cover this gap.
We have attended most of your ZOOM town halls as well as other related City supported fire victim forums. We have repeatedly heard that “the City is here to help,” “hurdles will be removed,” “people building same for same on the same footprint will be fast tracked,” etc.
We have taken these pledges to heart. We are investing in our community with the hope that we can restore the best of what was lost. We are meeting with like-minded neighbors to work in concert with them to reinvest not just in our home, but in our neighborhood.
We will have cleared our property by the end of this week and by the end of next we will have a site survey completed. We, based upon the repeated statements from the City, that people building on their existing footprint within 110% of the previously existing will have grandfathered setbacks and will be fast-tracked, and have already commissioned our updated architectural plans. We are not going beyond 100% of our previous square footage.
This means we have already committed over $15,000 to our architect/builder for a specific set of plans based upon the footprint and specs of our previous home, which we built in 1999 and already paid every nickel of the requisite fees, to Hillside, Coastal and the City.
So as not to waste time and money we have been to Building and Safety several times since mid-January to make sure we are on track for a conforming and smooth process. In the earlier meetings they echoed what we describe above.
Here are the alarming facts we learned yesterday that might force us to sell out to developers, against our desires, if indeed they come to happen.
First, L.A. Building and Safety still remains weeks away from the ability to share approved codified instructions on how rebuilders can move forward within compliance. They have been and remain waiting for clarity from your office before they state any instructions.
Second, and most catastrophic, is that the City has not yet eliminated the massive fees required for requisite building permits. At the meeting with a City Plan Checker yesterday, we learned our permitting could exceed $70,000. If this holds true, this could render our ability to rebuild as a non-start.
Next, appallingly, we learned that despite the repeated statements from your office that grandfathered setbacks would be allowed, the City is apparently back peddling on this promise. In our case this means we have, with the City’s implied direction, already wasted our limited dollars replanning our existing house.
It is my impression that over my past three decades as a Palisades property taxpayer, we pay a disproportionately high amount of taxes and get a parsimonious amount of services in return.
Specifically, in the 34 years at my address I doubt I have seen maybe 60 patrol cars cruise my street. In the rare times Police have been called out for urgent incidents, their best response time has been in excess of 45 minutes and on some occasions our pleas were simply ignored.
In the last five or so years, the City has made at least three feeble attempts to repave Temescal Canyon. The continuing and unresolved failures here have damaged cars and cost thousands of lost hours for road closure-related delays.
As for Engine Companies 23 and 69, I have seen them every May to buy their swag at the stations’ open houses. I have donated to their frequent kitchen upgrades. I have seen their various trucks in the 4th of July Parades. I have seen their EMTs make numerous calls to individuals with medical issues. I HAVE NEVER SEEN THEM ACTUALLY PREVENT OR FIGHT A FIRE. And as we all know now, as seen with my own eyes, they were nowhere near my house on January 7 or 8.
What specific responsibility and liability the City has for the neglect of the Palisades will, I am sure, be litigated for years to come.
What is clear now is that charging the Palisades fire victims willing to reinvest the remains of our life savings for permits would further victimize the victims, encourage the economic destruction of an otherwise close and unique neighborhood, create a feeding ground for grifters and sharks and developers and worse, provide a windfall to a very undeserving municipality.
Let’s get behind your rhetoric. Help us rebuilders get on with our lives with the minimal cost to our time and savings. Waive LA City permitting fees. Stand by your word to respect grandfathered setbacks. Immediately publish clear and actionable instructions to all of the City Services that are supposed to be helping us with alacrity along our way.
I do not hold the Mayor’s office at fault for the fire. I do hold your office responsible for your response to it.
On a personal note, Madam Mayor, I voted for you against obvious local and national trends because of your words and past deeds. Please don’t make me regret it.
Sincerely,
Andrew Halpern
Also, my friend just learned, after NUMEROUS conversations with various city personnel that if you do build the additional 10% it will be taxed at the current rate, not grandfathered with the rest of the property (if that is even true since I have not seen that in writing).
We have had this same experience with the city planners. They tell us they are still in the dark and cannot approve of guide us or our architectural team on any topic! And that there are no inspectors ready to approve work either. Two months have passed! People are ready to build. This is disgraceful!
Hi Sue! It’s Regan! I agree with everything Mr Halpern said!!!
I really enjoy your articles too!! Thank you for writing them! Maybe we can all meet at the Garden Cafe on day?? I have been there twice and it’s nice to see neighbors!
Very well written. I can’t wait to hear the mayor’s response.
Regan–hope to see you soon–I miss meeting you on the street with our doggies.
Sue
Andrew Halpern’s letters reflex our concerns as well. Hope Mayor Bass heeds this request. We need all the help we can get to rebuild the Palisades!
Sue–agree with Regan re possibility of meeting you someday at Garden Cafe. My husband and I are leasing a house in Westwood, a difficult drive for meeting up at the Hive at Marina del Rey. However, we do visit our still-standing-but-as-yet-uninhabitable Palisades house and it would be nice to meet you in person in the Palisades. We’ve enjoyed and appreciated your newsletter for many years.
Shall we begin taking bets that Mayor Bass actually responds to this well written letter… and I mean respond with requested information and detailed guidance not blah blah platitudes. I’m betting no response. What a sad state of affairs we Palisadians find ourselves in.
I agree with everything said. Mayor Bass, please heed our simple request. Every other agencies have waived their fees, why should this be the exception, especially for rebuild.
Mayor Bass,
This letter says it very succinctly. There is nothing more to add. Rebuilding the Palisades is really in two hands. Yours and insurance commissioner Lara. Yours in terms of regulations and rebuild permitting expenses and commissioner Lara in terms of regulating the insurance companies. Granting rate increases to insurance companies like State Farm that are not meeting current responsibilities almost guarantees many current residents will not be able to rebuild. Please reach out to commissioner Lara and urge him not to grant increases until State Farm satisfies the obligations that come with the privilege of selling insurance in this state.
It would be a travesty if the City of LA did not waive the building fees for fire victims. The City of Malibu and the County of LA have waived these fees after every fire as far back as I can remember. Shame on Mayor Bass for not taking care of this already. We have been ready to submit our plans for several weeks now, but are still waiting for these fees to be waived. This delay in giving a simple instruction to the Building and Planning Departments to waive all fees is costing fire victims a lot of money and quite frankly they deserve better from their elected officials!
Is it possible to get this letter printed in the LA Times or WSJ, as well? I think a larger or even national audience can shed light on the incompetency of our elected officials and increase the exposure and pressure for them to do the right thing.
Agree with all the points in this letter. They should be ashamed at charging victims of a disaster a fee to rebuild.
Andrew~ fantastic letter and we also lost everything and our beautiful newly remodeled home was left in rubble. We are homeless in LA. Private debris removal, countless meetings and costs with our architect, structural engineer, surveyor, GC & designer who are all on board rebuild the exact house in the same location. Yet, no guidelines from the city! This is not acceptable. Mayor Bass, do the right thing and help the thousands of us struggling people rebuild while you sit in your Tony Hancock Park home not worried about any of our problems. We are ALL waiting on you, and that does not bode well for any of us. I beg you to prove me wrong ……