As audience members trickled into the Broad Stage Tuesday evening, conversations buzzed between former neighbors, new friends and strangers connecting over their shared experiences following the Palisades Fire.
Pacific Palisades and Malibu residents discussed the devastation of losing their homes, being unable to return to their community and their process of receiving permits to rebuild.
On January 7, two fires ignited in L.A. County. Fueled by extreme wind conditions, the Eaton and Palisades Fires damaged significant parts of the Altadena and Pacific Palisades neighborhoods. The Palisades Fire, alone, scorched more than 23,000 acres and caused about $150 billion in damages, according to Reuters. CalFire reported a combined total of 31 civilian casualties in both fires.
Over the past eight months, residents in both neighborhoods have been focused on rebuilding burned structures. This rebuilding effort has been facilitated in part by Mayor Karen Bass’ executive actions issued over the summer, which intend to fast-track the construction process. Amid these efforts, a suspect was arrested on October 8 and charged with starting the Palisades Fire.
Tuesday’s panel included seven city officials and was moderated by Larry Mantle, the host of LAist’s Airtalk podcast. The audience was partially filled with about 100 people, many of whom had “lost their homes in the Palisades Fire,” according to Mantle. The “Palisades’ Road to Recovery” panel aimed to address unanswered questions from Palisades and Malibu residents and adjacent community members.
Questions regarding the permitting process were the first to be addressed. In an effort to restore the Pacific Palisades neighborhood devastated by the fires, city officials have issued permits for residents to rebuild structures on their property.
“Two hundred thirty homes are already under construction,” said Traci Park, a councilwoman for District 11. “About 700 permits have been approved, and those folks are free to break ground any day.”
Park referenced resident desires to “add additional space,” the Palisades’ “very complex geography” and construction “workforce strains” as reasons for the slow permitting process.
As local governments continue to issue permits in the Palisades, Malibu residents have been experiencing “growing anger and frustration” with the lack of permits, according to Abe Roy, the chair of the Malibu Rebuild Task Force. “Seven hundred odd permits have been issued in the Palisades and in Malibu, only three.”
In addition to the permitting process, insurance complications have led to the bogged-down rebuilding effort in the Palisades. The primary reason residents are “holding back from making decisions” about their properties is remaining “questions about insurability and future insurance” of new properties, according to Park.
Officials have been hosting roundtables to help residents understand how homes can “be rebuilt in an insurable way,” according to Maryam Zar, the president of the Palisades Recovery Coalition.
Gaps in insurance coverage have been hindering many residents’ efforts to rebuild. Residents have been experiencing a financial disparity between their insurance payouts and the costs associated with rebuilding their homes. In addition to these insurance gaps, “many 1000s of people were underinsured or uninsured,” Park said. This also left many families without “adequate capital to rebuild” after the Palisades Fire.
Some insured residents in Malibu have not received payouts altogether. To combat this, legislative bills have been introduced to force partial insurance payouts for affected residents. Though these bills have not yet been passed, insurance companies have “signed off on this idea that folks ought to at least get 60 percent of their coverage,” according to Roy.
“I think a lot of it is just the reality of not having enough money,” said Brian Selwyn, a L.A. resident whose children attended K-12 school in the Palisades. “This is a bad time for government assistance on so many levels, for so many different things, and I think that’s having an impact,” he said in an interview with Annenberg Media.
Rebuilding has become especially difficult due to persistent issues with damaged infrastructure. In the Palisades, the city is working to “upgrade the electrical distribution system” and “expand the water flow capacity” for residents and businesses, according to Park.
“We are moving on all of those infrastructure projects now, but that is going to be multiple years until completion,” Park said.
In Malibu, fixing infrastructure such as the Pacific Coast Highway is pertinent to the overall rebuilding process.
“Because of the impact on Pacific Coast Highway in Topanga, there just wasn’t anybody coming to Malibu,” said Barbara Bruderlin, the former CEO of the Malibu Pacific Dallas States Chamber of Commerce. “People are afraid to come.”
This fear has stunted the return and growth of Malibu businesses, which has also had an impact on residential rebuilding. “The residential rebuild has to go hand in hand with the businesses returning,” Bruderlin said.
The Palisades has also experienced an upward battle with rebuilding business districts. “A total of 1,400 businesses were lost through that and 19,000 employees,” said Brunderlin, referencing the destruction she witnessed in the Palisades.
As the city of Pacific Palisades rebuilds its business district, officials share “a deep recognition of how important it is to do our part to help deliver a vibrant community and commercial corridor back to the Palisadians,” said Rachel Freeman, LA’s deputy mayor for business and economic development.
Overall, officials present shared resilient attitudes as they work to rebuild their communities for residents and tourists. Reopenings of businesses and recreation centers, along with the rebuilding of residences, will happen gradually through 2028.
“At the end of three years, we are going to see completed streets with families living in them,” Park said. “We will not be 100 percent done, but there is going to be a recognizable, thriving community here and continuing to return.”
A previous version of this story attributed quotes to Principal City Planner Ken Bernstein. These quotes were said by Traci Park, a councilwoman for District 11. We regret the error.