emergency Executive Order No.1<\/a>, which fast-track wildfire recovery permits. That option would cost the city at least $86 million, according to the City Administrative Officer (CAO).<\/p>\nBy contrast, the Ad Hoc Committee for LA Recovery chaired by Councilmember Traci Park supports a far broader proposal. It would waive a wide range of fees for all structures damaged in the fire \u2014 including apartments, mobile homes, condos and commercial properties \u2014 with no cap on how much larger a replacement building could be. Updated CAO projections put the cost of that approach at up to $278.35 million, not including borrowing costs.<\/p>\n
Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, argued that the broader relief better reflects the mix of housing and small businesses destroyed when the Palisades fire swept through canyon neighborhoods and the Sunset Boulevard commercial corridor.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely nothing about this rebuild is voluntary,\u201d she said. \u201cThese aren\u2019t people trying to rebuild for profit. They are trying to rebuild their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many residents, she added, are \u201cholding on by a thread,\u201d paying mortgages on destroyed homes while also paying rent elsewhere. Limiting waivers to single-family homes, she said, \u201cjust repeats the same falsehood that somehow the Pacific Palisades is just an island of affluence,\u201d noting the fire also destroyed rent-stabilized apartments, income restricted condos for seniors and mobile home parks.<\/p>\n
But Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who sits on the Budget and Finance Committee, said he was sympathetic but urged colleagues to stay realistic about what the city can afford.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fee-waiver concept is a tricky one, because there\u2019s really no such thing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt really just means the General Fund is paying those fees \u2026 at a time that we are really struggling financially.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other council members, including Tim McOsker and Katy Yaroslavsky, said they were uncomfortable voting without more precise numbers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t funny money, it\u2019s not theoretical money,\u201d said Yaroslavsky, who chairs the Budget and Finance Committee. \u201cI would like to, before we vote on an amendment, understand what the fiscal implication of that is, at a moment when we are already after our first FSR (Financial Status Report), at least $80 million in the hole for this fiscal year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Park also introduced a \u201cfriendly amendment\u201d urging colleagues to broaden eligibility if the Budget and Finance report advanced. Her proposal would set a sunset date of Jan. 7, 2030; extend fee waivers to ineligible Palisades property owners whose fees were already suspended; apply the \u201clike-for-like\u201d waiver to condos, townhomes, apartments and mobile homes, remove the 110% rebuild cap for single-family homes and duplexes.<\/p>\n
Separately, Councilmembers Yaroslavsky and Monica Rodriguez proposed requiring any property owner who uses the fee waiver to reimburse the city if the property is sold within five years of construction.<\/p>\n
Rather than adopt the amendments piecemeal, the City Council agreed \u2014 on a motion by Councilmember McOsker \u2014 to send the entire matter back to Budget and Finance for further analysis, including updated cost estimates and recommendations on how the program could be structured.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Faced with dueling proposals that could cost the city anywhere between $86 million to nearly $280 million, the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":421080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2961,728,224,13252,6080,5337,50,17254,52,5609],"class_list":{"0":"post-421079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-los-angeles-city-council","14":"tag-los-angeles-county","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-palisades-fire","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-wildfires"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115653881610399470","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}