How Los Angeles will rebuild homes after the wildfires

A few weeks ago, the home of Dr. Damon Raskin in Los Angeles’ wildfire-stricken Pacific Palisades neighborhood burned to the ground. Yet even as he, his wife and two teenage children were still in shock, and even before being able to see the charred remains, the family had made a decision: “We want to rebuild our house,” Raskin said.

That one family’s juxtaposed situation — a mixture of sudden grief and steely resolve — epitomizes the plight thousands of Angelenos will be facing in the aftermath of the catastrophic firestorms that have ravaged Pacific Palisades, Altadena and neighboring communities, in addition to the latest set of fires that have broken out to the north of Los Angeles.

It also speaks to the daunting task confronting California’s homebuilding industry, as well as state and local agencies, that will be collectively involved in the massive reconstruction of more than 12,000 destroyed and damaged structures, at a cost already estimated at $40 billion.

“Rebuilding the homes themselves actually is the easy part,” said Tom Grable, division president, Orange County-Los Angeles, for Nevada-based Tri Pointe Homes. “The much harder part is what it’s going to take to bring those lots back to buildable form,” alluding to the colossal job of removing tens of thousands of decimated acres strewn with tons of hazardous debris. “And that has to be done in a comprehensive, programmatic approach,” he said.

In order to accelerate the cleanup and rebuilding processes that already involve a slew of regulatory red tape, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass have both issued executive orders. Newsom’s action suspends permitting and review requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act and the California Coastal Act. Bass’ order likewise will expedite permitting and also streamline debris removal.

Grable is on the board of the California Building Industry Association, a trade group representing homebuilders, contractors, architects, designers, engineers and materials suppliers throughout the state. The CBIA “is literally from ideation to escrow,” said the association’s president and CEO Dan Dunmoyer. In this instance, he said, “that means you take a burned-out piece of property and then go through the whole process of building that out.”

Raskin has just begun the multifaceted process involving builders, regulatory officials and insurance providers. “I’ve talked to a friend who’s a builder, and he gave me the name of an architect,” he said. “So we’re already making those initial…