Last year, California wildfires destroyed 13,000 homes.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced: “We are 100% committed to getting this neighborhood rebuilt again!”
Gov. Gavin Newsom echoed that, saying his officials were “responding to it at scale, with efficiency … addressing building codes, permitting issues, and moving forward to rebuilding.”
Great! It sounded like bureaucrats would get out of the way and let fire victims rebuild quickly.
But no. Not when government bureaucrats are in control.
More than a year later, fewer than 30 of the 13,000 destroyed homes have been rebuilt.
My new video explains why:
Jim Cragg, who saved his house by putting sprinklers on his roof, blames California’s red tape.
Now he runs a volunteer group helping people navigate life after the fire. He’s frustrated that it still takes months just to get permission to rebuild.
Also, those who do get permits and start rebuilding sometimes get stopped.
“You start building on that house and, oops! There’s a permit issue,” Cragg says. “Do you shut down for five days? All those trucks are waiting, all that lumber is waiting. There’s 6,000 houses waiting behind you.”
Bass claims her office simplified things for homeowners: “We have waived, put aside, suspended, so we can get through the permitting process in record speed!”
“Record speed” must not mean much to politicians.
Fire victims must complete a mountain of paperwork before they can get permission to rebuild.
The “Green Building Code” alone has countless rules. The flush volume of water closets must not exceed 1.28 gallons, builders must submit a construction waste management plan, garages must be wired for electric cars, finished buildings must include educational material on positive impacts of humidity and information about California solar energy programs …
It’s a good thing there’s a digital version of these requirements. Printing it would probably violate California’s environmental rules.
“Thousands of people are traumatized,” points out Cragg, “and they’re being handed (those forms) and told, ‘Learn this, figure it out, master this. By the way, if you mess up on this, you may end up losing … $100,000.’ It’s scary.”
The paperwork is so overwhelming that most homeowners haven’t even applied for permits.
“Financially, it doesn’t make sense to try,” says Cragg. “This is something that could ruin your family even worse than what just happened in the fire.”
Yet his mayor still insists, “This is actually pretty quick.”
“It doesn’t feel pretty quick for that family that’s living in a hotel,” says Cragg.
As usual, government causes more problems than it solves.
The fire itself was probably exacerbated by California’s strict environmental rules.
Residents say Los Angeles County wouldn’t let firefighters use heavy machinery in areas with “protected plants.”
Also, before the fire, officials drained a 117-million-gallon reservoir to repair its cover.
As a result, says Cragg, “Fire hydrants … some worked, most didn’t … The reservoir was empty.”
One reason it stayed empty was because California officials took months just to schedule its repair.
Everything government does costs more and takes longer.
If all the bureaucracy isn’t bad enough, the owners of empty lots are told they still must pay property tax.
But the politicians say they’re giving them a break. You only need to pay taxes on the lot, which comes out to two-thirds of what they used to pay.
“It’s a slap in the face!” complains Cragg.
Last year, Bass admitted: “There is dysfunctional levels of government everywhere. It isn’t anything particular to Los Angeles.”
She’s right about that.
But I think Los Angeles is probably worse than most places.
“The Pacific Palisades is a war zone,” says Cragg. “We need a war fighter mentality there. We don’t need committees. We need a decision now. We need leadership and rebuilding now.”
In California? Don’t count on it.
Photo by Fachy Marín on Unsplash
Typical Calif’dUp State/Local Govt BS. The whole bunch of those incompetent, overreaching/underperforming halfwits should be held liable for their failure to not only provide for the necessary services that they were well aware would soon be necessary, due to a well established historical record of seasonal outbreaks, but also for their seemingly entrenched environmental policies that place their constituents well at the least of their concerns over “Posturing” and “Political Correctness”.
It’s been well established that “Controlled Burning”, as well as well maintained “Fire Lanes/Breaks” and most especially “Right of Ways” where High Tension Power Lines, as well as other overhead power lines that traverse wooded areas. The endless additional burden of permits/required studies/etc that are constantly being added to those already in existence, seem to be nothing more than another way to draw income for the permit agencies without regard to the impact on being able to maintain a safe distance between highly charged power lines and the disaster caused by contact if a tree or limb comes into contact due to failure to maintain a safe distance between the two. Add a downed line or two, coming into contact with fallen limbs, leaves or unmowed areas, and you’ve got a prime example of the beginnings of a fire that’s most likely going to become quite a bit bigger before it’s detected.
Just sayin’…
I am not surprised that only 30 homes have been rebuilt. Our home was badly burned in a fire, here in Northern Nevada, on June 30, 2021. It took us four (4) years and a lawsuit against our insurance company to complete our rebuild. Our home was built in 2002. Do you know that when you rebuild a home that was built in 2002, after a devasting event such as a huge fire, you have to rebuild to meet all the current Building and Energy codes? Our home was constructed of 2 x 4 framing; in order to meet the 2018 Energy Code we had to rebuild with 2 x 6, which during COVID was super expensive.
Because the fire occurred during the height of COVID, I couldn’t meet with anybody at the Building Department to find out exactly what I needed to do. I could not find an architect to draw plans, so I did them myself, with the aid of a Structural Engineer that I knew professionally. State Farm was zero help as well; in fact, their tactics were meant to delay us as much as possible. We had 16 or 18 adjusters; we lost count after awhile. My wife would have to review all of the issues we were having with every new adjuster; meanwhile I continued working, until I was over 70 years old to be able to afford to rebuild our home, due to the actions of State Farm. Their game was meant to keep our claim below a certain level so that our extra coverages would not kick in. They caused us over a year of delay and then stopped paying for our temporary housing, leaving us to foot the cost of much of the rebuild as well as pay the rent for our housing. If they can get you to play their game, they save millions of dollars.
Obviously there’s a lot more to this story, but the Insurance Companies need to be reined in and held accountable, because they are ripping millions of people off. They know that most families with two working parents, a couple of kids and very little money in the bank cannot withstand delay after delay after delay. They’ll take that initial insurance payment and move on to start anew, as a matter of survival. This is a story that needs to be told.
When you combine the game the insurance companies play with the cesspool of Red Tape and the sick Bureaucracy that is California, I’m surprised thirty homes have gotten rebuilt.