The Brief

As neighborhoods start to rebuild from January’s destructive fires in Los Angeles County, a debate is sweeping across social media and into the halls of local government: Is adding more housing in burn zones unsafe? Or could it be a solution for areas that were deeply unaffordable?

Focus has centered on Senate Bill 9. The state law allows homeowners to split their lots and build duplexes on land zoned for single-family homes. Homeowners can use SB 9 to build up to four homes on lots previously reserved for one.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass banned SB 9 projects in the Pacific Palisades as soon as Gov. Gavin Newsom gave local leaders permission to suspend the law in burn zones. Opponents of denser housing say allowing more homes, and more people, in these neighborhoods will ruin community character and clog roads during future emergencies.

But in Altadena, county leaders have taken a hands-off approach.

“I don't want to disenfranchise anyone from the ability to rebuild,” Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents Altadena, told LAist in a recent interview. “We have the flexibility at the local level to address what SB 9 is doing without taking away local land rights.”

In Altadena, 26 applications and counting 

Because SB 9 projects tend to be costly and tightly regulated, the law has been seldom used since it took effect in 2022. But now, dozens of homeowners with burned-down lots are using SB 9 in their rebuilds.

Seven SB 9 applications were submitted in the Palisades before Bass quashed further submissions. In Altadena, the county received 26 applications by early September.

Barger said she is generally opposed to state laws that supersede local land-use decisions. And she has praised Newsom for an executive order restricting high-density housing development along the commercial corridors of Fair Oaks Avenue and Lake Avenue in the wake of the Eaton Fire.

But, Barger said, SB 9 gives homeowners financial opportunities — like renting out secondary units or pooling resources with other family members planning to live together, but in separate buildings, on the same lot. Those options could spell the difference between rebuilding, or having to sell and leave Altadena for good.

“I want people to be able to choose to rebuild because they want to,” Barger said. “I want to make sure I don't put any hurdles in place.”

Old home is a lodestar for new plans 

Large windows and steel framing can be seen in Paul Sanchez's former home in Altadena.

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Courtesy of Paul Sanchez

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That’s reassuring to homeowners like Paul Sanchez, who is considering building up to three units on his lot in Altadena. Before the fire, his family lived in a classic exemplar of post-war California modernism. It had an open floor plan, steel framing and floor-to-ceiling windows.

“The home that I lived in was built by an architect who fled Vienna, was a Holocaust survivor, and built with new materials and new ideas at the time in 1948,” Sanchez said. “I'm going to continue this legacy of new ideas.”

Sanchez said sustainability and affordability are key to his vision for rebuilding. His plans aren’t finalized yet, but he said he’s looking into various pre-fabricated models made with fire-resistant materials. And he wants to keep the units relatively small and affordable to prospective renters, as well as for him and his wife (their adult daughter is now out of the house).

“I'm cautiously optimistic,” Sanchez said, looking out over this dirt lot. “I think SB 9 is an option that could really help me. Because I'm not sure if I can do it without it.”

Paul Sanchez stands on the dirt lot in Altadena where he plans to build smaller, more affordable homes made from fire-resistant materials.

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David Wagner/LAist

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When rebuilding is a family affair

Other homeowners are planning to use SB 9 to make room for multi-generational family members who were previously squeezed into homes designed for fewer people.

Lori Gay, chief executive of the nonprofit Neighborhood Housing Services of L.A. County, said her organization is counseling homeowners on programs that could aid in their rebuilding efforts. She said SB 9 is complex but could be the right answer for many families.

Gay said that when talking with long-term, cash-strapped Altadenans, her staff tries “as nice as we can” to discourage homeowners from selling their properties.

She said they ask: “Do you have someone else in your family that either you’d consider selling to, or parcel-splitting with?”

Gay said the organization tries to help property owners find other viable options.

“The number one thing we've seen with all those conversations is that seniors are willing to move into a smaller space and let their families move into the major property,” Gay said. “So as we think about rebuilding now, is that something that's workable for people?”

SB 9 panned on social media 

Opponents of SB 9 contend that the law is unsafe and unsuited to areas rebuilding from massive fires.

Before Bass suspended the law in the Pacific Palisades, social media influencer and former reality TV star Spencer Pratt posted a series of viral videos on TikTok lambasting elected leaders for allowing duplexes in the neighborhood. He said the area “cannot handle more density.”

Christopher LeGras, a consultant with Our Neighborhood Voices, a group that organizes against state housing density, said safety concerns are paramount.

“The idea of putting in more people who would have to evacuate if — God forbid — there's another major emergency, is just reckless,” he said.

Opponents also view SB 9 as a threat to neighborhoods’ previous low-density character. LeGras said that by building more units on lots that used to hold just one, homeowners could end up discouraging their neighbors from wanting to return.

“That's going to fundamentally change the character of that block,” LeGras said. “When you start talking duplexes and real, more substantial multifamily [homes], I think that's a bridge too far.”

SB 9 is banned, but ADUs are allowed 

None of the SB 9 applications submitted in Altadena so far have asked to split their lots, and none have asked for the maximum of four units. Instead, they’re adding more gentle forms of density.

Barger told LAist she has asked the county’s Public Works Department to report back to her on what higher density projects would mean for Altadena. But for now, she said, she wants to leave SB 9 on the table for homeowners struggling to rebuild.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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LAist

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So far, elected leaders in Malibu have also refrained from taking up the governor’s offer of banning SB 9 in burn zones. City officials told LAist last month that they had yet to receive any applications for lot splits.

Developer Andrew Slocum, CEO of Green Development Company, is working with homeowners on their SB 9 projects in Altadena. He said many are planning to add just one additional unit to their property. They’re using SB 9, he said, because it results in more advantageous property valuations than homeowners would get through typical accessory dwelling unit laws.

Slocum said Bass’s decision was a “knee jerk reaction” that “robbed” homeowners in the Pacific Palisades of better options for rebuilding.

“To just blanket take it away from them, when it really would result in the same amount of housing, the same amount of people as an ADU… it's really unfair,” Slocum said.

In Newsom’s executive order, which gave local leaders the option to suspend SB 9 in very high fire hazard severity burn zones, he said the state law was not tailored for natural disasters such as the deadly January fires that destroyed more than 13,000 homes.

The governor’s order does not apply to all of Altadena, but local leaders could suspend SB 9 in the community’s eastern foothills if they so choose.

With tensions already high in Minnesota after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer killed Renee Macklin Good, the Trump administration is ramping up the pressure on cities and states to cooperate with its immigration crackdown.

The administration had already surged federal agents — sometimes accompanied by military troops — to Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago, Charlotte, Memphis, Washington D.C. and New Orleans.

Now the White House is threatening to cut funding for sanctuary cities. Here's a brief explanation of how local governments interact with federal immigration enforcement, and what the White House can and can't require from them.

A fight over federal money 

President Trump threatened this week to cut "significant" federal funding to sanctuary cities. He hasn't said exactly what money his administration wants to cut, though he gave a deadline of Feb. 1.

Nor has Trump said exactly which cities or states will be targeted, though the Department of Justice did publish a list of more than 30 cities, states and counties in August. (That list includes the state of Minnesota, though not Minneapolis or St. Paul or their respective counties).

In remarks on Tuesday at the Detroit Economic Club, Trump seemed to be focused on places that limit their cooperation with ICE.

"They do everything possible to protect criminals at the expense of American citizens. And it breeds fraud and crime and all of the other problems that come," Trump said. "So we're not making any payment to anybody that supports sanctuary cities."

This is not the first time President Trump has made a threat like this. During his first term, the president tried to withhold some federal funding from sanctuary cities. More recently, Trump signed an executive order nearly a year ago directing the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to make a list of sanctuary cities and withhold money from them.

But courts have sided against the administration in nearly every case, saying that the federal government cannot use funding to coerce state and local governments into changing their policies on immigration.

"Here we are again," U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco wrote in April. Orrick granted (and later extended) a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from withholding federal funds from 16 jurisdictions, including San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, St. Paul and New Haven.

"The threat to withhold funding causes them irreparable injury in the form of budgetary uncertainty, deprivation of constitutional rights, and undermining trust between the Cities and Counties and the communities they serve," Orrick said.

No precise legal definition of 'sanctuary'

There's no exact legal definition of "sanctuary city." But broadly speaking, the term refers to any city, state or county that limits its cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

The legal questions here are nuanced. Local law enforcement cannot block federal agents from doing their work but courts have said that state and city officers can withhold some cooperation.

The legal arguments are rooted in the U.S. Constitution and the division of powers between the federal government, which is in charge of immigration enforcement, and state and local governments, which run their own police and sheriffs' departments.

Courts have backed states that don't want to share data on residents in their records, including information about driver's licenses. And in many places, state and local law enforcement will not honor what's known as a "detainer request" from ICE, which essentially asks police to hold someone in detention until immigration authorities can take custody.

Local officials push back 

Virtually all the cities and states the administration has focused on so far are led by Democrats, who don't seem to be backing down after Trump's threat to cut federal money.

"This is just a threat to intimidate states like New York into bowing into submission. And that is something we'll never do," New York Governor Kathy Hochul said earlier this week. "You touch any more money from the state of New York, we'll see you in court."

State and city leaders argue there is a fundamental public safety rationale for their sanctuary policies. They say that working with ICE would undermine trust and cooperation between local law enforcement and immigrant communities as they seek to prevent crime.

There's clearly a political aspect to this as well. In many sanctuary cities, voters are asking Democratic leaders not to give in to the White House and its immigration agenda, so local leaders may have a strong incentive to dig in their heels.

Why local cooperation matters 

In the past, ICE has found that it's faster and safer to arrest people who are already being held in local jails. And that's one reason ICE was able to make so many arrests during the administration of President Obama, for example, before sanctuary policies were as widespread as they are now.

The White House says a lack of local cooperation is hindering its efforts to build "the largest deportation operation in the history of our country," a pledge Trump made frequently during his reelection campaign.

"Minnesota's 'leaders' have chosen defiance over partnership," the White House said in a statement on Friday.

But Democrats say the administration is deliberately creating confrontations in cities and states that are led by political opponents, provoking chaotic scenes on purpose for reasons that go beyond simply enforcing immigration law.

Copyright 2026 NPR

On a recent Saturday, a group of teenage musicians took to a stage inside an unlikely place: an unassuming unit in a business park at the bottom of Lincoln Avenue in Pasadena.

This space has a stage sitting on its concrete floor with the words "Backyard Party" playfully scrawled across the bottom.

The members of a band called The Wendolls sound checked with Matt Chait at the mixing board.

Backyard Party, one of the area’s newest all-ages venues, is the brainchild of Chait and fellow organizer Sandra Denver.

“The fires crushed garages where kids would have been playing. It burnt backyards where they would have been playing. It burnt down the schools where they would have been playing. So this is the communal backyard party. That’s specifically what we built and why we built it,” Chait said just outside the makeshift venue. The only thing that sets it apart from the nondescript units around it is a handwritten sign that says ‘No Ins and Outs.’

Chait, who was evacuated from his residence during the Eaton Fire, teamed up with Denver to manage the volunteer-run Backyard Party a few months ago. Her daughter sung lead vocals in a band called Sly, one of four bands on the lineup.

“We wanted to provide a space for all of the teen bands all around to come and play and help them create a kind of scene,” Denver said.

It’s the type of spot Denver said she wishes she had growing up in Phoenix, Arizona.

The tip box at Backyard Party

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Robert Garrova / LAist

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And she’s just one of several supportive parents here who are helping load in amps and guitars and bass drums.

Sixteen-year-old Jett Bizon is the drummer for Saints of Sinners, one of the bands on the bill. He said there’s another reason there are so many parents in the crowd.

“Well, nobody drives. Everybody needs a ride,” Bizon said with a chuckle.

With his long dark hair, Bizon explained that he’s already played some legendary local venues like The Whiskey a Go Go. But he said it feels like Backyard Party is becoming a much needed space for younger musicians in the area.

“We need to let out some type of energy and everybody’s putting it into music,” Bizon said. “I think it’s a great thing. Finally a scene again, it’s fun.”

As Bizon and his bandmates played their set of hard rock songs, the only people on their phones in the crowd were parents filming.

Some of the young folks taking the stage were affected by the Eaton Fire in one way or another. Some of them were evacuated. Others lost homes or saw their friends displaced.

Payton Owen was part of the crew running the door, taking tickets and dolling out snacks. She too is a musician and writes reviews of some of the concerts here.

“I think it’s amazing. I think it’s really like a point of community,” she said from behind a glass case filled with bags of popcorn and candy. “It’s a really nice opportunity for kids to really have somewhere where they can go.”

Teenager Elise Lamond agreed. She’d been following Chait around all night, learning how to set levels for the musicians, run the house lights and more.

“Most people at this age don’t have those kinds of opportunities,” she said, adding that, as a musician herself, she appreciated having free access to the venue’s music equipment, too.

Chait, who had a hand in running the now closed AAA Electra 99 venue in Anaheim and has been a musician since he was 12, said Pasadena and Altadena have a noteworthy music pedigree.

“I mean, Van Halen started in quite literal ‘backyard parties’ over on Allen. I think it lives here,” he said.

And Chait said he’s blown away by the new talent that’s come to this stage. For his part, he thinks it’s the start of a new scene that will balloon beyond Altadena and Pasadena.

Matt Chait going over the sound setup with Elise Lamond at Backyard Party.

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Robert Garrova / LAist

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“The fact that these kids who are now, let's say, 15-20 all lived through COVID and were very separated from each other. And now, in this particular neighborhood, are also separated again because of the fires. And they have supportive parents and now they have the physical place to be... All of the pieces of the puzzle are here,” Chait said.

For now, Chait said this is a labor of love. The space here is provided by Altadena Musicians, a non-profit that’s working to get instruments back in the hands of people who lost their gear in the fires. And as for ticket sales?

“It is the best part of running the venue: the end of the night, when we hand cash to these kids for playing,” Chait said.

Tonight’s bounty from a full-house? $320.

“There’s a couple of these kids, if they play one or two more times, we’re going to have to give them 1099s,” he said.

How to catch a BYP show

Backyard Party
1260 Lincoln Ave. #1300
Pasadena

For a calendar of upcoming shows, check out BYP’s website and Instagram.

On Friday, Southern California Edison filed lawsuits against Los Angeles County and several other agencies over their alleged roles in the Eaton Fire.

Two lawsuits were filed.

In one suit, the utility company alleges Southern California Gas delayed shutting off gas in the burn area for several days after the fire, making the blaze worse.

“SoCalGas’ design and actions caused gas leaks, gas fires, reignition of fires, gas explosions and secondary ignitions during the critical early stages of the Eaton Fire,” according to the suit.

The claim goes on to say this contributed to the spread of the fire and made firefighting and evacuation efforts more difficult.

In the second suit, the utility company alleges the Eaton Fire was made worse by the local government response, “including due to the failures of LASD, LACoFD, OEM and GENASYS in issuing timely evacuation alerts and notifications,” the claim reads.

The same filing says L.A. County was to blame for vegetation and overgrown brush in the Eaton Canyon area that fueled the blaze.

It also named the city of Pasadena and its utility system, Pasadena Water and Power, the city of Sierra Madre, Kinneloa Irrigation District, Rubio Cañon Land & Water Association, Las Flores Water Company and Lincoln Avenue Water Company as parties responsible for water systems running dry in Altadena as the fire broke out.

Edison says hydrants running dry compounded the extent of the disaster.

Those claims will be heard in the L.A. County Superior Court, which is also handling L.A. County’s lawsuit against SoCal Edison.

Edison itself is the subject of hundreds of lawsuits from survivors of the Eaton Fire, which could cost the company billions of dollars in settlements.

Edison has said its equipment likely sparked the Eaton Fire and filed these suits, in part, because it believes these various entities should share some of the blame for the disaster, which resulted in the destruction of thousands of buildings and the deaths of 19 people.

A compensation program Edison established for fire survivors who forgo suing the company has made settlement offers to more than 80 of those who applied.

A new organization is taking over production of the MLK Day Parade, almost 40 years after the first parade was held in South L.A. to commemorate the civil rights leader.

Bakewell Media, publisher of the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper (a partner of The LA Local), was granted the permit in September to organize the parade for the first time by the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners. Formerly called the Kingdom Day Parade, the parade has been rebranded as the Los Angeles Official Martin Luther King Day Parade. The parade was previously produced and organized by Adrian Dove and the L.A. chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality California (CORE-CA).

With less than a week before the parade kicks off, LA Local reporter LaMonica Peters sat down with Danny Bakewell Jr., president and executive editor of the LA Sentinel, to discuss the details and what attendees should expect.

This Jan. 12 interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Why did you decide to produce the MLK Day Parade this year?

Bakewell: It all started because Adrian Dove, who was the previous promoter, had announced that he was retiring. When he announced he was retiring, LAPD, city council offices and other people said, “Hey, we still want to do the MLK Day parade. Would you guys be interested? You have the infrastructure to put it together.” And we said yes.

What’s different about this year’s production?

We’re going to start the parade with a singer performing “Lift Every Voice.” We’re going to play the message from Bernice King at the start of the show. Obviously, we have Cedric the Entertainer as our grand marshal to add the entertainment value, but the community has always been and will continue to be a major part of this parade.

Is ABC 7 covering the parade this year? 

It’s still going to be televised by ABC. We’re working diligently on how the show is going to be, but ABC has been a great partner.

What was the preparation for this parade?

Thanks to our corporate sponsors, we have a number of bands. The truth is, particularly in LAUSD at this time, and other school districts, they don’t have the funding to just get a bus and get here. I can’t say enough about Airbnb to Bank of America, all of our corporate sponsors, who are supporting all of the youth organizations.

Were there any unexpected challenges while preparing for this parade? 

This [The LA Sentinel office on Crenshaw Blvd.] is usually our command center during The Taste of Soul. It dawned on me last week that we’re going to be a mile away [from the parade route]. So, we made the decision to bring in a trailer to be our office at the corner of King and Crenshaw boulevards.

Any special guests this year besides the grand marshal?

I’m working on a surprise guest to be the singer for the national anthem. No matter what, we will give tribute to the Black national anthem “Lift Every Voice” as loud as we can next Monday.

What’s the long-term vision for this parade, if Bakewell Media continues to produce it?

We see the MLK Day Parade, and we want the world to see and expect to see this parade, the same way they see the Macy’s Parade, the Hollywood Parade or the Rose Parade. BET has come in this year as a partner. So there’s an opportunity to possibly do a national broadcast on BET. Not that we would lose our local television, but we see this as a major parade in this community and in the national African American community, celebrating the great work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. So, we are very excited.