Altadenans are rushing to rebuild, but progress is slow

Among the many things Beatriz Coca did not know about building a house — and only learned as workers were laying rebar in her future basement — is that she would need a temporary power pole installed before the next phase of construction could begin.

Coca was one of the dozens of applicants who drop in daily to Los Angeles County’s One-Stop Permit Center for Eaton fire rebuilding. Her mission on a recent day was to pay Southern California Edison the $425 power pole fee.

Mixing with the contractors, architects and expediters who normally frequent building offices, novices like Coca, a retired psychologist, are showing up at the center to run errands for their builders, pursue their own applications or just try to understand the many roadblocks in their path to recovery.

The first thing they are likely to learn is that nothing moves at a speedy pace.

A Times analysis of Los Angeles County building permit records shows two distinct realities: Interest in rebuilding is high and progress is slow.

At the end of March, The Times found, just under 3,400 applications to rebuild destroyed residences had been filed. That’s about 56% of the roughly 6,000 residential structures in Altadena that CalFire designated as destroyed.

The time it takes those applicants to obtain building permits has steadily grown from a median 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 was not very long,” she said. “It seems very long, but it was because of the planning time.”

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

To date, 33 new homes have been completed, more than 1,000 are under construction, and about 560 more have received building permits.

A different profile has developed in Pacific Palisades. Applications have been filed with the city of Los Angeles to rebuild only about a third of the destroyed dwellings there, but the turnaround is faster, averaging less than 100 days from application to permit. So far permits have been issued for 867 homes and seven have been completed.

The Times analysis showed that both communities were still progressing well behind the pace of Santa Rosa after the 2017 Tubbs fire, with about half as many permits issued in the Palisades as a percentage of those burned and two-thirds in Altadena in the same period.

At the county’s one-stop center, applicants coming and going expressed both frustration with the process and gratitude for having a single location to take all their questions.

“This place is a godsend,” said Crystal Nerone, who has made several information gathering trips there before she and her husband, Michael, file an application to rebuild their house on Laurel Drive.

“Every time I’ve gone, 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 the rebuilding at one long desk. Applicants drop in without appointments and wait in two rows of plastic chairs for their names to be called. Depending on where they are in the process, an official from planning, building and safety, the Fire Department or public health will call on them.

Business was brisk on two days The Times observed, and the waiting times were generally only a few minutes.

Despite the convenience of the one-stop concept, the process is so convoluted that some left frustrated and confused.

After his second visit in less than a week, Diego Fernandez still wasn’t cleared to install 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 fee, a representative told him he’d need to do it online, he said. As promised, he got the invoice by email the next day but didn’t see a link to pay. When he returned a few days later, the representative guided him to the SCE website, then told him he’d next have to get the permit from the county. It was too late to get in line again that day, so he’d have to return.

“The information has not been clear since Day One,” Fernandez said.

To assess the pace of rebuilding in Altadena, The Times tracked the 238 rebuild applications filed in September. Some moved swiftly. Six months later, 81 had obtained building permits and construction had begun on 30 of those.

But others lagged. After three months, more than half of the applicants had not yet provided complete building plans. By March 30, three had failed to clear zoning review, 25 had not filed complete building plans and 84 were waiting to have plans approved.

Those numbers illustrate one of the key factors that delay projects, said Katherine Luna, who makes frequent visits to the one-stop center while shepherding 27 rebuilding projects through the system as a project manager for J. Aldric Burch Construction. Many property owners have rushed their applications in with only minimal designs, then get stuck waiting for their architects to produce full plans and, at the next step, respond to corrections required by the building department, Luna said. In her experience, Luna said, the building department has generally responded quickly.

On its rebuilding dashboard, the county reports that cases spend an average of 32 days in county review compared with 122 days waiting for applicant response.

Luna’s firm has in-house designers but also takes clients who have their own architects. One owner with his own architect filed his initial application in May and was hung up in planning until March.

“Over and over again it’s been on hold,” the owner, Rupert Garcia, said in an interview. All the hiccups now blend together in his recollections.

Construction crews rebuild homes that were destroyed in the Eaton fire in Altadena.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Initially Garcia, an accountant with “Dancing with the Stars,” applied to add an ADU to his property but changed his mind because of the cost.

“I tell them I don’t want to do the other plans,” he said. “But in their system they were waiting for the other plans to be submitted.”

Then, late last year, his architect told him the county wanted her to move his front door because it faced the wrong side of his corner lot. He had added 250 square feet to his house, making it ineligible for the “like-for-like” exemption from current code.

“Once they made her redo the door, the whole house changed,” he said. “That took four months.”

He said Luna has now expedited the case, and he’s hoping to get his building permit in April.

Coca, who was at the one-stop center to pay for her power pole, hired a contractor with in-house designers to replicate her 1924 Craftsman bungalow on East Altadena Drive.

She submitted her application in July, hoping to get started before demand overwhelmed the workforce, but didn’t get her building permit until January. While she waits, Coca drives a couple of times a week from her temporary home in Dana Point to keep her garden alive.

“The permit process itself was not very long,” she said. “It seems very long, but it was because of the planning time.”

She recalls that revisions to the site plan were needed before her builder could submit full plans; then there were corrections.

“I think they were not submitted again until some time in November,” she said. “It took a while for the designer to resubmit the revisions.”

The Nerones hope to avoid the many pitfalls by doing extensive research before jumping in. They spent weeks observing houses under construction before hiring an architect who designed one that impressed them.

Crystal Nerone has made repeated trips to the one-stop center to understand in advance every hoop they’ll have to jump through.

Her most recent was to find out if they would need a permit to rebuild the damaged pool. They would.

It wasn’t only circumspection that held them up so long, Crystal said.

The trauma of losing her house left her in a prolonged depression.

“By the time you realize you’re over it, it’s been a year,” she said.