After the fire

Los Angeles established expedited review for eligible Palisades rebuilding, including like-for-like reconstruction and specified limited expansions. Its recovery site describes targets for complete application review and permit clearances. A faster review process is a meaningful action, but a review target is not a promise that every owner can finance, design and occupy a replacement home within that interval. [1]

In November 2025, Bass announced a first certificate of occupancy for a rebuilt home. That is stronger evidence of a finished building than a count of applications or permits. Even occupancy statistics need care: a completed speculative replacement is not necessarily a displaced family returning. The official release demonstrates a milestone, not that the community had recovered. [2]

To evaluate progress fairly, specify the jurisdiction and denominator: all destroyed structures, residential buildings, lots, submitted applications, issued permits, active construction sites or occupied homes. County dashboards and city figures do not automatically cover the same areas. Eaton, Malibu and Los Angeles have distinct permitting authorities. Publishing the largest available number without those labels can make progress appear faster; comparing completed homes with every separate outbuilding can exaggerate the opposite impression. The right question is how many households remain displaced, why, and which delays government can actually remove. [3]

On October 12, 2026, ABC7 reported complaints from Palisades residents whose rebuilding was slowed by LADWP permitting, inspections and power connections. Interim general manager Dave Hanson apologized for delays and described additional local inspectors, a clearer command structure and a customer portal. He acknowledged that inspection requests had risen faster than staffing and that dispatching inspectors from the Valley had added difficulty. These are concrete administrative failures and remedial claims, rather than a general assertion that nobody had done anything. [1]

The city’s infrastructure restoration plan distinguishes immediate stabilization, active community recovery and longer-term modernization. Underground electrical work, roads, sewer and stormwater repairs involve coordination across projects and years. A modernization horizon is not automatically a date before which no house can reconnect, and a new staff assignment is not proof that every complaint is resolved. [2]

Bass can properly be questioned about oversight, urgency and follow-through even when a utility employee handles an individual application. At the same time, finance, insurance, engineering, contracting and owner decisions can delay private rebuilding beyond the city’s direct control. A useful accountability record tracks the specific bottleneck, the agency’s promised remedy and whether service improves. The October reporting establishes residents’ complaints and an official acknowledgment; it does not establish that the new measures have already solved the problem. [1][3]