Could Mayor Bass’s Housing Initiative Create Other ‘Palisades’ Fire Disasters?

Readers of the California Globe are sharing their concerns about the rebuilding in Pacific Palisades following the devastating fires. And these concerns are legitimate as the Mayor and governor have each mentioned building “affordable” housing to replace older buildings, dense housing, and even requiring landlords to replace apartment buildings burned down in the Palisades with low-income rental units.

Globe reader, Gary Frazer, contacted us with concerns about Mayor Karen Bass’s housing initiative conflicting with High Fire Severity Zones, and some behind-the-scenes hanky-panky. Here is his email:

“It turns out many plans were submitted before the City of LA fixed ED-1. And while City Planning initially sought to halt at least one of these oversized projects, now the City is approving it–a 200-unit building for a single-family residential street in Sherman Oaks.

In “Loophole Brings Multi-Family Projects to Single Family Streets”:

“A loophole in one of Karen Bass’ first acts as mayor of Los Angeles may allow as many as eight multi-story apartment buildings to rise on the same block as single-family residences.

“Shortly after she was sworn in, Bass issued an executive order to fast-track the city’s approval of 100% affordable housing projects and homeless shelters in response to the declaration of a homelessness state of emergency in Los Angeles.

“The order, known as Executive Directive 1 (ED1) establishes a fast-track process that exempts developers of these projects from conducting certain environmental impact assessments or running a gauntlet of public hearings.

Gary Frazeur continues:

“That story [above] mentions eight projects slipping in through the ‘loophole,’ but omits a ninth project (and potentially more that we don’t know about). That project is in our neighborhood, the Hollywood Manor; a hillside community located in a Very High Severity Zone that was laid out in 1925 and contains 327 homes, averaging 1,700 square feet in size. It turns out the Planning Department and Council District 4 have been secretly negotiating with a developer who now intends to build a 10-story, 64-unit building with egress and ingress on a narrow, winding, substandard street called Floyd Terrace that is lined with single-family homes. Residents and our local community groups, representing thousands of homeowners and tenants, have unanimously opposed the project. The same developer was denied an 18 unit building at the same site in 2019 due to the fire concern and with ED-1 rightly amended and no updates on the Planning website, we thought the developer had run out of time with an incomplete plan. All the while he was moving forward behind the scenes with [LA Councilwoman] Nithya Raman‘s office and Planning; now an approval may be imminent.

“Given what we just saw in Pacific Palisades, the Hollywood Hills near the Bowl, and Altadena, as residents fleeing the wildfires found themselves trapped on neighborhood streets clogged with traffic, the idea of a 10-story building in a High Fire Severity Zone perched on a narrow, winding residential street with extremely limited access seems, well, ridiculous and terrifying. There are three ways to get in and out of our neighborhood, all from busy Barham Blvd. There are no through streets and no evacuation plan.

“We all understand and embrace the need for more affordable housing, but we should explore potential alternatives that prioritize both the need for housing and the safety and well-being of our community.”

I replied to Gary Frazeur: “This is a very interesting problem and one we are seeing all across California, foisted on many older, established neighborhoods. Politicians are now under intense pressure and scrutiny to get housing built despite all of their no-growth policies and environmental regulations. They created this mess, so now they are bypassing their own rules.”

Gary Frazeur:

“I’ve had lots of meetings with city officials and completely agree with your assessment of how this problem is exacerbated by political pressure. Our local fire station doesn’t think they could fight a fire at the site due to high tension power lines and the narrow street, but won’t publicly oppose the project for fear of reprisal. I can understand given the recent firing of the LA Fire Chief. LA Planning and the Mayor’s office call the process ministerial, but also give extra time and incentives/waivers to the developer. An example is that Planning issued a letter of termination (link HERE), but then didn’t adhere to the timeline; later they said the developer has a voluntary hold and and an unlimited amount of time to amend their plans. The plans were recently resubmitted and it seems like there’s an imminent decision despite the ED-1 amendment and the LA Fire catastrophe.”

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It is apparent that Los Angeles is a hot political mess. Foisting “affordable housing” on established residential neighborhoods is counterintuitive and destructive. But perhaps that is the point.

There are many people like Mr. Frazeur in California who are very reasonable people, and active in the process, but their concerns are met with a solid wall of audacity by arrogant politicians who operate under secretive, alternative agendas.

The best disinfectant is sunlight. These faulty and unreasonable housing plans need to be exposed, as do the shady politicians pushing them. In their zeal to satisfy supposed “affordable” housing goals, remember the Globe article where we reported on Santa Monica’s “affordable” homeless housing, coming in at $1 million per apartment for 122 units. Apparently this is the “affordable housing” Gov. Newsom and AG Bonta are pushing cities taxpayers to build, under threat of legal action.

Remember when as one of his first acts as governor, in 2019, Gov. Newsom sued the Orange County city of Huntington Beach for failing to provide enough additional “affordable housing,” while his own home county of Marin enjoyed a moratorium on affordable housing building requirements until 2028, the Globe reported.

Newsom said that because “some cities are refusing to do their part to address this crisis and willfully stand in violation of California law, those cities will be held to account.”

Only, left-leaning Marin won’t be held to account the way conservative Huntington Beach will.

Read more about this affordable housing shakedown HERE.