Within the wake of the record-breaking wildfires in Los Angeles in January — a few of the most costly and damaging blazes in historical past — one of many first issues California Gov. Gavin Newsom did was to signal an government order suspending environmental guidelines round rebuilding.
The thought was that by waiving allowing rules and opinions underneath the California Coastal Act and the California Environmental High quality Act (CEQA), owners and builders might begin cleansing up, placing up partitions, and getting individuals again into homes sooner.
However that raised a key query for housing advocates: Might California do one thing related for the entire state?
Earlier this month, Newsom took a step in that path, signing two payments that may exempt most city housing from environmental opinions and make it simpler for cities to extend housing by altering zoning legal guidelines. Newsom additionally signed one other government 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 means of LA burned virtually 48,000 acres and broken or destroyed greater than 16,000 constructions, together with greater than 9,500 single-family properties, 1,200 duplexes, and 600 residences in one of the crucial housing-starved areas of the nation.
Los Angeles is a crucial case research for housing for the entire state, a take a look at 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 owners in areas affected by wildfires utilized for rebuilding permits as of July 7, based on the Los Angeles Occasions. Fewer than 200 have obtained the inexperienced mild, nonetheless. 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 sluggish, in order that’s not shocking,” mentioned Elisa Paster, a managing associate at Rand Paster Nelson primarily based 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 12 months out after the embers have died down, it’s clear that altering the principles isn’t sufficient. Advocates for CEQA say the 55-year-old regulation is mostly a scapegoat for greater, extra intractable housing issues. Different elements, like costlier development supplies and labor shortages, are nonetheless driving up housing development prices, no matter allowing speeds. And a few environmental teams fear that the frenzy to rebuild all the pieces 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 may’t assist communities harmed by wildfires
CEQA is certainly one of 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 development undertaking, like water air pollution, threats to endangered species, and later, greenhouse gasoline emissions. Builders must 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 development. Many critics see it as a cynical instrument wielded to stop new housing development 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 vitality.
Nevertheless, CEQA isn’t essentially the gatekeeper to rebuilding single-family properties after wildfires, based on 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 constructions and new development of “small” constructions like single-family properties. “Our common take is that the chief orders round revoking environmental evaluation and environmental rules across the rebuilding [after the fires] did little to nothing past what was already in present regulation,” Baker mentioned. He added that the overwhelming majority of initiatives that face CEQA evaluation get the go-ahead, and lower than 2 p.c 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 will be an costly and prolonged course of, particularly for big or sophisticated initiatives. That is true even when there’s not litigation,” based on a 2024 report from California’s Little Hoover Fee, the state’s unbiased oversight company. “Preparation of an Environmental Affect Report underneath CEQA can take a 12 months or longer and value a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars}, and even, in some circumstances, greater than $1 million.”
As well as, CEQA does come into play for individuals who need to make extra intensive modifications to their property as they rebuild, like in the event that they need to develop their floorspace greater than 10 p.c past their authentic ground plan. The regulation can also be triggered by broader wildfire threat discount initiatives, specifically brush clearance and managed burns, in addition to infrastructure upgrades like placing energy strains underground to stop fireplace ignitions or putting in extra pipelines and cisterns for water to assist with firefighting. Exempting these initiatives might assist communities construct fireplace resilience sooner.
For multifamily properties like duplexes and house buildings, CEQA will be an impediment, too, if the developer desires to rebuild with extra models. “We’ve got multifamily buildings within the Palisades that had rent-controlled models, and what we’ve been listening to from a few of these property homeowners is like, ‘Yeah, certain. I had 20 rent-controlled models there earlier than, however I can’t afford to simply rebuild 20.’ These individuals 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 neater path to completion.
Environmental rules aren’t the one limitations to rebuilding
Rebuilding after fires is all the time going to be costly. Your private home might have been constructed and offered within the Nineteen Seventies, however you’ll should pay 2025 costs for supplies and labor whenever you rebuild. California already faces a few of the highest housing prices within the nation and a scarcity of development staff. The Trump administration is pushing the value tag increased with tariffs on parts like lumber and its marketing campaign to deport individuals. About 41 p.c of staff in California’s development business are immigrants, and 14 p.c are undocumented.
However even earlier than they’ll rebuild, one of many greatest challenges for individuals who have misplaced their properties is solely changing into entire after a loss. “From the shoppers 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,” mentioned David Hertz, an architect primarily based 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 apart from 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 constructions extra immune to wildfires, however bringing burned-down outdated properties to new requirements in excessive fireplace threat areas provides to the timeline and the value tag.
“There’s this stress between all of us desirous to have individuals 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 mentioned.
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 probabilities 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 document, and bookended by one of many driest begins to winter. It created the perfect 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 mentioned. Lowering wildfire threat on a wider scale requires coordination between neighbors.
For instance, Hertz mentioned that in most of the communities that burned, there are possible many residents who received’t come again. Neighbors might coordinate to purchase up and swap vacant land parcels to create a defensible house with fire-resistant bushes like oak to function fireplace breaks and water storage to assist reply to future blazes. Hertz himself leads a neighborhood brigade, educated volunteers who work to scale back wildfire threat of their neighborhoods.
He additionally cautioned that whereas there’s a variety of well-deserved pushback towards rules like CEQA, the reasoning behind it stays sound. Improvement with none environmental concerns might put extra properties within the path of hazard and destroy the ecosystems that make California such a lovely place to stay.
“I believe there’s a stability,” Hertz mentioned. “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 can be altered completely.
