Michelle Ma and John Gittelsohn at LA Daily News:
Of the thousands of residents needing to rebuild after this year’s California wildfires, Andy Weyman would seem especially well positioned. The TV and stage director had remodeled his Malibu home just five years earlier and had city-approved blueprints in hand, with the same architect set to oversee reconstruction. Yet eight months after the Palisades fire destroyed almost 600 Malibu houses, the city has issued only two rebuilding permits. Weyman needed geological tests to ensure the stability of his bluff-top lot. Construction costs are roughly double his insurance coverage. In August, his architect died.
I know one homeowner who hopes to be in his newly built house in a month or two. Victoria Knapp of the Altadena Town Council told me she knows people who sold their lots immediately after the fire and now regret it. And L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said the permitting process has been revamped and she doesn’t sense that many people are bailing on Altadena. But as we head for Halloween and Thanksgiving and round the corner of one year into the next, roughly two-thirds of property owners have not yet applied for building permits, and there is widespread frustration, exhaustion and uncertainty. People who were fully committed to rebuilding in the immediate aftermath of destruction are now rethinking it, having grown weary of the slog.