One of the many things Beatriz Coca didn’t know about building a house – and only found out when workers were laying rebar in her future basement – is that she would need a temporary power pole before the next phase of construction could begin.
Koka was one of dozens of applicants who come every day Los Angeles County’s One-Stop Permit Center For Eaton fire reconstruction. His mission recently was to pay Southern California Edison a $425 power pole fee.
Together with the contractors, architects and fast-paced workers who typically build offices, novices like Koka, a retired psychologist, are showing up at the center to run errands for their builders, pursue their own applications or try to understand the many obstacles on the way to recovery.
The first thing they can learn is that nothing moves fast.
A Times analysis of Los Angeles County building permit records shows two different realities: Interest in rebuilding is high and progress is slow.
At the end of March, The Times found that just under 3,400 applications had been filed to rebuild destroyed housing. That’s about 56% of the nearly 6,000 residential structures in Altadena that CalFire has declared destroyed.
The time it takes for those applicants to obtain a building permit has steadily increased from an average of 127 days in December, when The Times first calculated the figure, to 155 days currently.
Beatriz Coca maintains the garden on her Altadena property. “The permit process itself wasn’t very long,” he said. “It seems very long, but it was because of the time it took to plan.”
(Alan J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
To date, 33 new homes have been completed, more than 1,000 are under construction, and approximately 560 more have received building permits.
A distinct profile has developed in Pacific Palisades. Applications have been filed to rebuild only about a third of the housing destroyed in the city of Los Angeles, but turnaround has been rapid, with an average of less than 100 days from application to permit. So far, permits have been issued for 867 homes and work on seven has been completed.
The Times analysis showed that both communities were still progressing well ahead of Santa Rosa’s pace after the 2017 Tubbs fire, with permits issued at half the percentage of those burned in Palisades and two-thirds in Altadena over the same period.
At the county’s one-stop center, walk-in applicants expressed frustration with the process and gratitude for having a single place to take all their questions.
“This place is a godsend,” said Crystal Nerone, who and her husband, Michael, made several information-gathering trips before filing an application to remodel their home on Laurel Drive.
“Every time I’ve been there, I’ve had a positive experience,” she said. “They’re very patient. They’re very concerned about what we’re going through. They’re empathetic.”
The center, just outside the burn area on Woodbury Road in Altadena, combines all the county functions involved in reconstruction at one long desk. Applicants arrive without an appointment and wait for their names to be called in two rows of plastic chairs. Depending on where they are in the process, an official from Planning, Building and Safety, Fire Department or Public Health will meet with them.
The Times observed that business was brisk over the two days, and wait times were generally only a few minutes.
Despite the convenience of the one-stop concept, the process is so complex that some people become frustrated and confused.
After his second visit in less than a week, Diego Fernandez did not receive approval to erect a power pole on his property on Leilani Way.
McCoy Cantwell helps a visitor at the Los Angeles County One-Stop Permit Center in Altadena.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
On his first visit to pay Edison’s fees, he said, a representative told him he would have to do it online. As promised, they received the invoice by email the next day but no link to pay appeared. When he returned a few days later, the representative directed him to the SCE website, then told him he would then have to obtain a permit from the county. It was too late to stand in line again that day, so he had to return.
“The information has not been clear since day one,” Fernandez said.
To assess the pace of reconstruction in Altadena, The Times tracked 238 reconstruction applications filed in September. Move forward a little faster. Six months later, 81 had received building permits and construction had begun on 30 of them.
But others lagged behind. Even after three months, more than half of the applicants have still not provided complete building plans. As of March 30, three had failed to complete zoning review, 25 had not filed completed building plans and 84 plans were waiting to be approved.
J. These numbers reflect one of the major factors delaying projects, said Katherine Luna, who frequently visits the one-stop center while overseeing 27 reconstruction projects through the system as a project manager for Aldrich Birch Construction. Many property owners have sent in their applications with only minimal designs, Luna said, then are stuck waiting for their architects to draw up full plans and respond to improvements required by the building department in the next phase. Luna said, in his experience, the building department has generally responded quickly.
On this dashboard rebuild, The county reports that county review of cases takes an average of 32 days while awaiting a response from the applicant, compared to an average of 32 days for review of cases.
Luna’s firm has in-house designers, but she also takes on clients who have their own architects. One owner filed his initial application with his own architect in May and got stuck in planning until March.
“Repeatedly it has been stopped,” the owner, Rupert Garcia, said in an interview. All the hiccups now merge together in his memories.
Construction crews are rebuilding homes destroyed in the Eaton fire in Altadena.
(Alan J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Initially Garcia, who was an accountant on “Dancing with the Stars,” applied to add an ADU to his property, but changed his mind due to the cost.
“I tell them I don’t want to make other plans,” he said. “But in their system they were waiting for other plans to be presented.”
Then, late last year, their architect told them the county wanted them to remove their front door because it faced the wrong side of their corner. They had added 250 square feet to their home, making it ineligible for the “like-for-like” exemption from the current code.
“Once they had him redo the door, the whole house changed,” he said. “It took four months.”
He said Luna has now expedited the case and hopes to get a building permit in April.
Coca, who was at a one-stop center to pay for her power lines, hired a contractor with in-house designers to remodel her 1924 Craftsman bungalow on East Altadena Drive.
She submitted her application in July, hoping to begin work before workforce demand increased, but she did not receive a building permit until January. While she waits, Coca drives by twice a week from her temporary home in Dana Point to keep her garden alive.
“The permit process itself wasn’t very long,” he said. “It seems very long, but it was because of the time it took to plan.”
She recalls that the site plan required amendments before their builder could submit complete plans; Then there were improvements.
“I think they weren’t reintroduced until sometime in November,” she said. “It took a while for the designer to resubmit the revisions.”
Nerons hope to avoid many pitfalls by doing extensive research before getting involved. He spent several weeks observing houses under construction before hiring an architect who produced a design that impressed him.
Crystal Nerone has made repeated trips to the One-Stop Center so she understands in advance every hoop she will have to jump through.
His most recent work was to find out if he would need a permit to rebuild a damaged pool. They will.
It wasn’t just caution that kept them going for so long, Crystal said.
The shock of losing his home left him with prolonged depression.
“By the time you realize you’re over it, it’s been a year,” he said.
