An eminent group of university experts and the real estate industry has developed a large -scale plan to accelerate the resumption of the districts of the County of Los Angeles devastated by the January fire.
The authors identified road dams for recovery and proposed solutions such as the speed construction approval processes; solve the problems of labor and supply chain; And stabilize the California real estate insurance market.
“We want to make sure that we move as quickly as possible to try to bring people back home,” said report president Lew Horne, head of the Grand Los Angeles region for the CBRE real estate service company.
172 pages “Project recovery” report was compiled by teachers in the USC and UCLA real estate schools, as well as the Los Angeles section of the Land Urbain Institute, a real estate institute for education and research.
This is the deepest look to date on the measures that can be taken to accelerate the renewal while the displaced residents weigh their options to return to the Pacific Palisades, Altadena, Malibu and other affected districts.
More than 100 experts in land use, urban planning and economic development have offered a technical analysis and recommendations to help those who work on reconstruction to make decisions and collaborate, said Urban Land Institute.
The report is also based on the Institute's experience by advising communities affected by disasters, especially in Colorado after the Marshall 2021 fire and New York and New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy.
“Project Recovery” is an independent report not linked to current research by Steve Soboroff, director of the recovery of forest fires for Mayor Karen Bass.
The report of the Institute, which was subject to the staff of the City and the Comté, is “a plan for the recovery of people who know many various problems,” said Soboroff. “It's the best thing that comes out, by far.”
A construction worker begins the reconstruction process in a house that has been destroyed in the fire of the Palisades.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Many of his suggestions are synchronized with the “90-day report” of Soboroff's observations and recommendations which will be presented the second week of April, he said.
Some key recovery steps have already been taken: The city has approved Permit to rebuild three houses in the Pacific palisades. Last week, 72 owners had submitted reconstruction requests to the city. 98 additional deposited to the county of the to rebuild in the uncommon areas in society.
In the new report, teams of experts working with the Urban Land Institute have identified major obstacles to the recovery of widespread forest fires and proposed strategic solutions, in particular:
Standardizing debris removal protocols
Consultants and entrepreneurs, whether hired by the body of army engineers or by private parties, must follow the same protocols for the withdrawal of debris, according to the report. For example, the research team found that the derogations of certain requirements from the rules of the air quality management district of the southern coast relating to the suppression of asbestos have been provided to the entrepreneurs engaged by the body of army engineers but are not extended to private entrepreneurs.
The results of the soil sampling must be examined for each property in order to ensure that they comply with the accepted standards and that a completion certificate must be issued by a local state or environmental agency to document that the standards have been respected and connected to the construction permit file for each property as a permanent file.
Rationalization of approvals
The report approves a license self -certification program explored by Los Angeles officials. Eligible projects would include unified houses, accessory residential units, apartments and small commercial projects. Architects, engineers and licensed design professionals could “self -certify” the construction plans and specifications as compliant with the objective requirements of the building code.
There should be a digital application for the self -retirement of permits used by project permit coordinators to consolidate all departmental journals, authorizations and signaling panels in on -site license centers.
“We believe that you could follow a year's law program and overthrow it at 30 days,” said Horne.
The sequential examinations of several departments such as construction and fires must also be eliminated and replaced by a program which would consolidate all the magazines as part of a project permit coordinator.
Address labor and supply chain problems
On -site reconstruction logistics centers should be created for each forest area which is able to treat up to 350 permits per month within 30 days of applications.
The centers would provide logistics planning and management of simultaneous construction activity of 1,000 to 2,000 residences per forest zone and 30,000 to 40,000 workers. Logistics experts would be for parking, housing and workers' services; Construction deliveries; transport routes; staging of materials; and working hours. The centers would also provide offices for inspectors and inspection planning services.
The restoration of infrastructure and public services services should be coordinated with residential construction to accelerate the construction of new houses.
Stabilization of the California real estate insurance market
The insurance challenges faced by many owners who have undergone catastrophic losses have stressed the need to solve long -standing problems with the coverage of fire policies in the state that threaten California's future prosperity, the authors of the report said.
“These forest fire disasters are a very thick layer of frosting on a insurance crisis Cake, “said economist Stuart Gabriel, Director of the Center for UCLA Ziman for real estate.” There is a great imperative that it is treated substantially. »»
Among the recommendations: require that insurers take into account hardening at home, defensible space and attenuation efforts on the level of the community when setting up or policies renewal; Give clear advice on how to prepare their properties to get the best prices; And offer a public-private reinsurance program to encourage insurers to reintegrate high-risk areas.
In addition, insurers require taking into account forest management in their subscription and stimulating federal, state and local funding for forest and chaparral management strategies, such as controlled burns and the reduction of fuel load.
These community reconstruction authorities would act as general directors, authorized to plan and implement reconstruction and recovery efforts. They would have the surveillance of independent governance councils but would maintain operational autonomy and authority.
ARC mandates would include the creation of a financial aid fund to help owners fill the financing gaps and create a private center for coordination planning, permits and inspections under one roof.
The report also recommends launching a consortium of manufacturers who could offer turnkey reconstruction solutions to owners who prefer not to undertake reconstruction by themselves.
A crucial part of the reconstruction process will be to engage with people in the communities affected to “discover what they want and what they expect,” said economist Richard Green, director of the USC Lusk center for real estate. “Because even if I agree that we must bring economies of scale to reconstruction, if they have the impression that it is imposed on them, that would not go nowhere. Their emotions are so raw at the moment. ”
