Despite reforms, Los Angeles is rebuilding very slowly ...Middle East

Good intentions do not always lead to promised results. After the wildfires in the Los Angeles-area earlier this year, state and local leaders promised to remove the regulatory barriers that impede construction. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed executive orders exempting the rebuilding from the Coastal Act and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said she was committed to rebuilding “as fast as possible.”

Los Angeles County approved a plan to defer and refund certain fees for residents rebuilding their single-family homes. The city and county also have One Stop Permit Centers and the county has come up with sets of pre-approved bungalow plans to expedite the rebuilding of historic homes. These are good ideas—but they haven’t amounted to much in practice, at least so far.

The county’s permitting dashboard—a clever idea that tracks permit progress and promotes public accountability—shows that only 33 permits have been issued in the Eaton unincorporated area and only one permit has been issued in the Palisades area. That’s 34 permits in areas that saw more than 12,000 destroyed structures (per the dashboard’s estimates, although reports suggest more than 16,000 destroyed structures). Hundreds are in process, with an estimated turnaround of 46 business days.

That’s a slow pace given that the fire ended five months ago. In reality, California governments have built a massive bureaucratic process that impedes construction of anything—and it’s not easy to unravel even after an emergency and when top leaders are committed to doing so. Debris clearance has moved more quickly, but builders still need to navigate a labyrinthine process and multiple departments. It’s inexplicable given the push to rebuild quickly.

Reason magazine reported on one builder who was building a simple 570-square-foot ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit): “Despite the promise of a 30-day expedited process, it took 52 days for the city’s online application portal to deem the project approved. Getting even that provisional approval required calls and follow-ups with multiple city departments. At one point, the city’s Department of Water and Power lost their application, requiring them to refile.”

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Yet we’re still reading stories of regulatory nightmares. As the New York Post reported this month, “Other homeowners say they’re still in California bureaucratic hell—waiting for the government to clear debris, test for toxic chemicals left behind, fighting with insurance companies over payouts and trying to navigate the Golden State’s notoriously punitive homebuilding restrictions.” To anyone who claims those are just anecdotes, we’ll point them to the dashboard numbers.

We don’t doubt the good intentions of officials who want to speed up the construction process with regulatory exemptions and expedited planning reviews. But the slow rebuilding pace is a reminder that it’s far easier to create bureaucratic systems than it is to unwind them. Here’s hoping that lawmakers might learn that important lesson.

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