Mike and DNA Moore moved to Malibu in the late 1990s when DNA was pregnant with their first child. They raised three children in the community, and their youngest coached volleyball at his alma mater, Malibu High School. For many years, DNA has worked with dozens of local families as physical therapists treating children with developmental disabilities. Their lives are so intertwined with Malibu that when Woolsey Fire burned down a two-storey Cape Cora-style house in late 2018, Moore was sure they would rebuild.
“Home is a place where you have a heart,” said DNA Moore, 53. “My heartbreak is here.”
More than six years after the fire, Moore is still waiting to move into a new home. The couple has yet to secure approval to break through the ground as they are caught in the tangle of government permit rules.
“Every time we submit plans, it’s coming back to get another half dozen line items back,” Mike Moore said. “When will this end?”
City statistics show that less than 40% of 465 Malibu homes have been rebuilt, 465 houses destroyed in the Woolsey fire. Many reasons contribute. Homeowners may not want to start a new place in the same place as the fire-related trauma lived. Some may be under insurance. A fifth of affected homeowners have not submitted reconstruction plans to the city.
But for Moore and many others, the problem is navigating the web of regulations that control what can be built along the California coastline.
Moore’s struggle is a nightmare for property owners hoping to return soon after the Eton and Palisade fires devoured more than 11,600 homes in Altadena, Pacific Palisade, Malibu and surrounding communities It represents a scenario. Gov. Gavin Newsom, Mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass, LA County officials have pledged to quickly track approvals for those who want to build a home like they used to.
A similar promise was made in 2018. Gov of the time while touring newspapers and fire-torn Malibu with President Trump. Jerry Brown touted that he had signed an executive order “to cut the deficit and speed up the permitting process.”
Newsmu spokesman Tara Gallegos said the governor believes restrictions are slowing the recovery after Woolsey and other recent fires. Newsom’s has pledged to do something different this time.
“Though these regulations may be good policies under normal circumstances, this catastrophic fire will destroy thousands of homes in just a few days, and the Los Angeles community cannot afford additional delays in reconstruction.” Gallegos said.
Still, many details about how homeowners will receive permission to rebuild remain undecided.
Eton and the Palisade Fire
The catastrophic fire killed at least 28 people, leaving over 18,000 buildings worth more than $275 billion, leaving a burn zone 2.5 times the size of Manhattan.
In most California, local governments have the authority to approve projects. Los Angeles County will handle reconstruction permits in Altadena as it is an unincorporated area.
Along the coast where the Palisades were lit, there is another layer of bureaucracy. The California Coastal Commission will add additional rules designed to oversee development near the Pacific Ocean, protect wetlands, and limit the risk of sea level rise and combat and wildfires.
State law states exemptions from the coastal permit requirements for property owners seeking to rebuild after a natural disaster. The rules apply as long as the new home is only 10% larger than the previous home.
Malibu has a local zoning plan approved by the Coastal Commission, so the city is primarily responsible for permits, including handling of disaster exemptions. Malibu Mayor Doug Stewart said residents who proposed new homes within the waiver criteria had fewer issues to be approved.
“We’re saying, ‘Rebuild, rebuild, rebuild, but don’t expand,'” Stewart said. “Are you asking about the lessons you learned from Woolsey? This is it.”
City statistics show that homeowners who tried to use disaster exemptions are better, but only a few. Of these owners, 52% have ended. Such homeowners have more than 130 homes in construction or stay in the permit process.
Those who wanted to build larger homes face more difficult standards, including approval from the city planning board and potential appeals to the coastal board. Of the property owners who have gone this path, 45% are perfect.
George Hauptmann’s knot remains tied by his circumstances. Hauptman and his wife have been living in Malibu since the mid-1970s when they purchased the land and built their home on a hill overlooking Broadbeach. Woolsey’s Fire destroyed it.
They pursued disaster relief exemptions, and now they have completely rebuilt their homes and bolted the numbers on the address above the exterior entrance. However, the city has not issued a certificate of occupancy for Hauptman to enter the country. The new fire code had to provide more storage than this home. So they bought a larger water tank and placed it in the best place. But the city told him that it was a place that straddled the property line with his neighbor. After Hauptman hired a surveyor to prove that the tank was on his land, the city said the location still violated the set-off restrictions.
Hauptman refuses to apply for a potentially expensive and time-consuming zoning waiver for the tank. He and the city are in a deadlock.
Hauptman said the process made him feel like a “river vortex.”
“You just go around, go around, go around,” says Hauptman, 77.
Without permission to the fully rebuilt home, Hauptman lives in a nearby studio apartment and stays in his new home “a little more often than we should.”
The Moor site is located on the hillside from Point Dume, across the Pacific Coast Highway. It is said that they need to widen their driveways to meet the current fire code. Doing so will expand the footprints of their homes into designated environment-sensitive areas. They also want to set up a pool next to the house that could serve as a source of extra water in the event of another fire. Like a driveway, the idea lost permission.
The Moore family has been in front of their home since 2006 – 2007. Their home was destroyed in the 2018 Woolsey Fire.
(Photo from the Moore family)
Woolsey Fire will be heading to Moore’s house in 2018.
(Photo from the Moore family)
The couple sued their lawsuit in an email with city officials. In the fall, interim planning director Maureen Tamri apologised for what they were experiencing.
She cited the lack of staffing and coastal restrictions to tie the hands of cities.
“I’m sorry, but it was a very difficult process for you,” Tamli wrote to Moore. “I’ve now worked for 36 years in government, and I’ve never seen a city with these complexities and have seen a city with too little authority on oversight because of coastal planning. No. It’s a real outlier.”
Stewart said homeowners like Moore and Haupsman faced the issue of permits as they went beyond a simple rebuild of their home.
“It’s not the same house,” Stewart said. “It has a swimming pool in it. If you look at all the exceptions, it starts to add up and “It’s not a reconstruction.”
Property owners and developers have long overpowered coastal regulations, with or without natural disasters. When meeting with local leaders in Los Angeles after the fire, President Trump said the Coastal Commission is considered the country’s most difficult agency to secure permits.
“I’m not going to run away with them with their antics,” Trump said. The president said he would “override” the committee to rebuild the efforts, but did not provide details.
Before Trump’s statement, Newsom issued an executive order by relaxing coastal regulations. The governor’s order has already amended the natural disaster exemption in the law.
The Coastal Commission has released information to rebuild homeowners who said similar disaster reconstructions were released from coastal permit regulations because of existing laws and governor’s order. Newsom responded by calling the committee’s guidance “legally false” and issued another executive order. This said that while property owners did not require the exemption to rebuild their homes as before, the coastal rules did not apply at all. The committee removed guidance from its website.
“We clearly have a limited role,” said Kate Hackelbridge, executive director of the Coastal Commission last week.
DNA Moore stands in a mobile trailer where she and her husband Mike live in Malibu’s property.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
How this all works remains unknown. Some government agencies will need to decide whether the homeowner restructuring blueprint meets the exemption provisions. This goes without saying that it handles related issues, such as the enhanced fire code that suppresses Haupman and Moore’s permission. What complicates the situation is that unlike Malibu, the city of Los Angeles does not have a local zoning plan approved by the committee. This means that under normal circumstances, a city’s permit decision at Pacific Palisard could be appealed to the agency.
The Palisade fire delayed Moore’s permission further. In the aftermath of the flames, Malibu officials cancelled a visit planned by city biologists to assess plants on the site. The couple said they’ve been exhausted from years of bouncing between living on short-term rentals and airstream trailers on their land.
“We’ve been waiting for a long time,” DNA Moore said. “I want a house. I’m wrong I don’t have one yet.”
Times staff writer Ben Poston contributed to this report.
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