Five months after fires ravaged Los Angeles, Democratic leaders’ promise of “lightning speed” rebuilding has yielded only sluggish progress with few permits issued.
The January blaze destroyed over 16,000 structures across Los Angeles County and the cities of Los Angeles, Pasadena and Malibu. Democrat Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom promised swift recovery, but bureaucratic delays are hindering the process, with only 3.7% of permit applications submitted to Los Angeles County being approved to date.
“It’s just a culture of bureaucracy,” Steven Greenhut, the director of the Pacific Research Institute’s Free Cities Center, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Doing anything in this state is just so difficult that you can’t just wave the magic wand and have that whole process go away.”
Los Angeles County, which oversees rebuilding in unincorporated areas like the neighborhood of Altadena and some areas that burned in the Palisades Fire, has issued only 31 permits of the 837 applications received as of June 17, according to the county’s permitting dashboard. The dashboard currently tracks residential permits for single-family homes, multi-family residences, and accessory dwelling units and may exclude other permits such as those for commercial buildings or garages, a county public information officer told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The pace is better in the city of Los Angeles, where 114 permits out of 518 applications have been issued, according to a city official. However, this figure includes various related permits, such as site clearance, and does not solely represent rebuilding permits.
In Pasadena, only one rebuilding permit has been issued, with 12 still awaiting approval, a city official told the DCNF. In Malibu, none of the three submitted building check plans have been approved yet, according to the city’s dashboard.
State and local efforts have been made to streamline the permit approval process, though many residents have still voiced frustration over the speed of progress.
Newsom has signed several executive orders to expedite recovery, such as one waiving the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and California Coastal Act (CCA) permitting requirements, which are often blamed for project delays, for many buildings impacted by the fires. Bass signed an executive order directing applicable city departments to complete initial permitting reviews for reconstruction within 30 days.
“I’m all for this, but we need to do more,” Greenhut said. “After the wildfires, it would be really helpful if the state were to reform CEQA entirely rather than on a piecemeal basis.”
The fires’ destruction further strained California’s already costly housing market, where the median home price topped $900,000 in 2024. About 56% of the state’s shrinking population has considered leaving due to the exorbitant cost of living, a 2024 Emerson College poll found.
Following the fires, Los Angeles residents sharply criticized Newsom and Bass for poor leadership and inadequate emergency preparedness. Many locals said that the disaster exposed deeper failures in managing public safety, fueling growing distrust of California’s Democratic leaders.
The exact cause of the fires is still under investigation, but several lawsuits are attributing the blame to utility companies. One such lawsuit, filed by Los Angeles County, alleges that the Southern California Edison electric utility company is responsible for the fire in Eaton.
Others have called on the state’s Democratic leaders to take accountability for the inadequate management of forested areas and water policies, which they argue exacerbated the situation.
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