Can Newsom improve rebuilding odds in fire-ravaged Los Angeles? ...Middle East

Firefighters remove items from a garage after a wildland fire ignited a home along Tucker Road in Calistoga, Calif., on Friday, Oct. 2, 2020. On Thursday, March 14, 2024, California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara unveiled a proposal for letting those insurers use computer models of possible future catastrophes to justify rate increases. The plan is part of a yearlong effort to overhaul regulations and ease the insurance market crisis in the wildfire-stricken state. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group)

Angela Crawford leans against a fence as a wildfire called the McKinney fire burns a hillside above her home in Klamath National Forest, Calif., on Saturday, July 30, 2022. Crawford and her husband stayed, as other residents evacuated, to defend their home from the fire. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Gov. Gavin Newsom is trying to increase the chances that homes lost to the Los Angeles firestorms get rebuilt quickly.

The governor’s order to eliminate potential state regulatory roadblocks and his nudges to streamline local construction permitting processes acknowledge that getting approval to build housing in and around Los Angeles has long been an arduous, unnerving and complicated process.

To consider how the odds are stacked against new construction in a housing-starved area, my trusty spreadsheet reviewed 10 years of building permit stats from the Census Bureau through 2023 for Los Angeles County. The data includes all the cities plus unincorporated areas, as well as statewide and national.

The data shows 221,700 housing units in L.A. County were permitted during the decade-long timeframe, counting everything from single-family houses to apartment complexes. Only two U.S. counties had more: Harris in Houston (337,000) and Maricopa in Phoenix (310,400).

But if you didn’t know, L.A. is the nation’s most populous county, with an average 9.9 million residents over the past decade.

So, ponder L.A. homebuilding compared to its humanity. Residential construction on a per-capita scorecard translates to 22 permits a year for every 1,000 residents. How slow is that?

In the same 10 years, for example, there were 27 permits for every 1,000 Californians. So, L.A. ran 19% slower than California’s often-decried lethargic homebuilding speed.

It looks even weaker on a national yardstick: There were 42 building permits per 1,000 people nationally during 2014-23, making L.A. construction almost half as sluggish as the typical American sees.

How slow?

Now, let’s see how L.A. compares with 22 other large California counties.

It tied with Contra Costa and Santa Barbara for the fifth-fewest permits in this per-capita metric. Only Stanislaus, Monterey, Ventura and San Mateo counties were slower.

Or consider L.A. compared with the 50 most populous U.S. counties. The county’s permitting was meeker than all but 12 counties.

The laggardly group, all around major cities, include Cuyahoga (Cleveland); New York City suburbs of Suffolk, Nassau and Westchester; Wayne (Detroit); St. Louis; Cook (Chicago); Fairfax, Virginia, and Montgomery, Maryland (both Washington, DC suburbs), Allegheny (Pittsburgh), Broward (Miami), and Honolulu.

Roadblocks ahead

Remember that most L.A. housing permits are acquired by real estate professionals – developers of homes or multifamily projects. These are companies with permitting experts who can nudge projects around numerous bureaucratic hurdles.

Newsom hopes post-fire rebuilding will be quicker for the individual homeowner by lowering the red tape bar and suspending much of the California Environmental Quality Act and the California Coastal Act for qualifying properties destroyed by wildfires.

The governor’s order will do little to eliminate the mountain of other headaches victims face putting their lives and housing back together.

Getting insurance money is never simple – and LendingTree estimates 1-in-10 Los Angeles owners don’t have home insurance. And even homeowners with insurance may be disappointed about what’s actually covered.

Similar twists will likely occur for whatever government assistance becomes available.

Next, when owners finally amass their rebuilding funds, they face ballooning construction costs – up 40% in five years through late 2024, according to Verisk. The rebuilding rush will only make that worse.

Additionally, considering the vast scope of the damages, finding professionals to design and construct new homes will be another huge challenge.

Sidebar

Finally, let’s not forget the politics that could spin how much government cash victims eventually get – and how quickly.

Newsom’s ambitions of higher public office will be severely tested by his ability to smooth the firestorm recovery, as much as any governor can.

Thinking back to my youth, I recall the weather-related downfall of another ambitious and personable politician.

A 1969 blizzard essentially derailed New York City Mayor John Lindsay’s aspirations for higher office when the city’s inability to clear snow off streets in my home borough of Queens turned voters against him.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at [email protected]

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