Newsom's order aims to help Angelenos, but is rebuilding in the same areas a good idea?

People who lost their homes in the wildfires that swept through L.A. County last week won’t have to comply with some of the state’s strongest (and most time-consuming) environmental laws, according to a new executive order issued Sunday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The order makes it easier for people whose homes burned down to rebuild as quickly as possible in exactly the same places, by allowing them to bypass the California Environmental Quality Act (known as CEQA) and the California Coastal Act’s permitting processes.

But some environmental advocates say CEQA is one of the few tools they have to challenge problematic construction projects.

Others note that residents looking to rebuild fire-damaged houses likely wouldn't need CEQA permits anyway. The bigger issue, they say, is whether Newsom's order encourages risky development in high fire-risk areas.

What is CEQA anyway?

CEQA (pronounced See-qua) is a law designed to prevent new building projects from harming the environment. It also informs the public about potential projects that could be damaging to the environment, allowing ordinary citizens to weigh in.

The 1970 law has become controversial in recent years for dragging out the permitting process for new housing developments. Critics argue it has contributed to the state’s housing crisis by driving up the cost of construction and adding delays.

The California Coastal Act, meanwhile, seeks to protect the state’s coastline by requiring new development near the ocean to get a permit.

What really drives up building costs?

Exempting home rebuilding from these processes may sound like a sweeping change, but it may not actually change much.

Three planning experts LAist spoke with said CEQA and Coastal Act permits would not have been required to rebuild individual single-family homes that burned in a wildfire — even before the governor’s executive order.

Marylee Guinon, president of State Alliance for Firesafe Road Regulations and a retired environmental planner, wondered if the governor was unfairly blaming environmental laws for hampering rebuilding.

“This false narrative that this ‘red tape’ is driving up the cost of the rebuild process is not true,” she said.

“We know from many other fires that the cost and process of rebuilding was dictated by construction materials and supply chain issues during the pandemic," she continued. "So why the governor’s office is coming across like this, I honestly don’t understand.”

Rebuild or relocate?

The scene after a 2007 fire in Malibu. Homes were later rebuilt along the same beach.

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Brian Vander Brug

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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One question on some people's minds — especially in light of Newsom's order — is not will the neighborhoods come back as they were, but should they?

 ”I perfectly understand the political and optics that drove this decision,” Char Miller, a professor of environmental history at Pomona College, told LAist’s AirTalk. “But if we're really going to build back into neighborhoods that have burned, and burned multiple times, then I think we should ask a different policy question, which is why are we doing this?”

The history of wildfire in Los Angeles County is one of building, burning, and re-building, as writer Mike Davis noted in this classic essay: "The Case for Letting Malibu Burn."

Instead of re-building once again, Miller suggested the government should offer buyouts to people to encourage them to rebuild in a safer location, something that has happened after devastating floods in New York, Houston and other parts of the country.

"There's a pattern here," Miller told AirTalk. "We have yet to stop ourselves from doing the thing that we know will harm us."

But rebuilding in fire prone areas after wildfires in California is inevitable, said Alexandra Syphard,  an ecologist at the Conservation Biology Institute and an adjunct professor at San Diego State University.

Recent studies have found that most homes that burned down in wildfires in California are eventually rebuilt in the same places.

 "The best we can hope for, I think, is rebuilding to more fire resilient standards,” Syphard said.

What about the building codes?

Most homes in California were built in the 1960s and '70s. Any homes that are rebuilt now will likely be more fire resistant than those older homes simply by virtue of complying with newer, more stringent building codes.

However, the governor’s executive order suggests some elements of the building code may be suspended for homes rebuilt after the wildfires, and gives various agencies 60 days to make recommendations.

Chapter 7A of the building code requires fire adaptations for homes in very high fire-risk areas, including fire-resistant roofs and siding, screens to keep embers out of attic vents, non-flammable decks and patios and heat-resistant windows.

The governor’s office did not clarify whether it was considering suspending those codes.

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