Fire! Part Two
Governor Newsom is looking ahead to the rebuilding phase
Today, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an Executive Order (EO) designed to expedite the rebuilding process needed in the wake of the devastating fires that Los Angeles County has suffered this past week. In particular, the EO calls for suspending portions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the California Coastal Act, two key environmental protection statutes, but which are often criticized for adding complexity and delay to building projects.
As a life-long environmentalist, the EO gives me pause, so I thought taking a closer look might be important. (You can read the EO here.)
Let’s start with a painful reality: LA County already was suffering from an acute housing shortage that has made the cost of rent sky rocket in recent years. Between the Eaton and Palisades fires alone, more than 10,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed, displacing thousands and exacerbating the already untenable housing situation in the County.
Clearly, we need to move quickly to replace the destroyed housing stock — but can we do so without sacrificing environmental and safety standards? After all, what is needed is a more resilient built environment. The last thing that we need is for speculators to swoop in, buy up the land from desperate homeowners, and replace bungalows with McMansions that only the rich can afford. So some streamlining of regulations probably makes sense, provided that the streamlining doesn’t turn into a Wild-West, free-for-all land grab.
Buried within the EO is a very important provision. The lighter regulatory regime:
shall apply only to properties and facilities that are in substantially the same location as, and do not exceed 110% of the footprint and height of, properties and facilities that were legally established and existed immediately before this emergency.
I like to think of that as the no McMansions provision of the EO, and I find that very encouraging, but I suspect the public will need to be actively involved to ensure that this provision is implemented.
The EO also contains a measure extending until January 7, 2026, the time period to which criminal sanctions for price gouging during an emergency shall apply.
Also included is a provision for agencies of the State government to examine what parts, if any, of Title 24 (the section of the California Code of Regulations that governs home efficiency measures) should be suspended for projects in the affected areas. Again, this is concerning, since making homes more energy efficient saves money in the long term and reduces the carbon footprint — you know, the force driving climate change which surely played a role in this catastrophe — of the home over its lifetime.
Overall, Newsom seems to be approaching this with the appropriate sense of urgency, noting in an interview that what was needed was nothing short of a “California version of the Marshall Plan,” (by which the United States helped to rebuild war-torn Europe after World War II). He promised an inclusive approach to the upcoming decision making:
We already have a team looking at re-imagining L.A. 2.0, and we are making sure everyone’s included, not just the folks on the coast, [but] people here that were ravaged by this disaster.
However, with a hostile Trump administration due to take over in eight days, the climate for rebuilding might make such lofty ambitions harder to realize. On Saturday night, Trump posted the following:
The fires are still raging in L.A. The incompetent pols have no idea how to put them out. Thousands of magnificent houses are gone, and many more will soon be lost. There is death all over the place. This is one of the worst catastrophes in the history of our Country. They just can’t put out the fires. What’s wrong with them?
January 11, 2025, 10:24 pm.
As usual, Trump’s approach to the disaster is to try and score cheap political points. Utterly absent is any actual leadership, to say nothing of compassion.
Picking up on Trump’s lead, Republican House Member from Ohio, Warren Davidson declared that aid should be withheld to California until the state reforms forestry management — as if that was the cause of these fires. Quoted in The Guardian, Davidson said, “if they want the money, then there should be consequences where they have to change their policies… I mean, we support the people that are plagued by disaster, but we have to put pressure on the California government to change course here.” Davidson, who apparently holds degrees in History and an MBA, has no discernable expertise in forestry management, but please, tell us again how we “need to change course.”
Gonna be a long four years…
In community, forward!
Notes: