California's future depends on how leaders rebuild after the Los Angeles fires

1/16/2025 at 6:30:24 PM

I really, really, need every think piece that talks about 'rebuilding LA' to look at an actual map of what was damaged by the fire before I hear their views on urbanism and what Los Angeles needs.

Yes, 23k acres burned in the Palisades fire, and 15k in the Eaton fire. Yes that's a lot of area compared to SF, Manhattan, etc. Most of that area is mountainside! There's not suddenly 50 square miles of open space in LA to remake in the image of some ideal.

Of the portion of heavily burned land that was developed, quite a bit was also mountainside, or at least foothill. There's ~25 regular-ish blocks of the villages (backed up against foothill) that were destroyed, and some flat-ish area on Sunset Mesa, and the west side of Temescal Canyon, and a bit on Castellammare (but thankfully that wasn't as heavily impacted). But as the names implies, these are all mesa/ridge tops, bracketed by cliffs & canyons. The impacted parts of Altadena are a bit more regular, but very much sloping foothill backed up against their own mountainside. Moreover, both areas are somewhat peripheral, even for the city-without-a-center.

The point being that these are not places one can casually lay out some expansive transit-oriented scheme that's going to solve housing problems for the city. They're topographically and geographically constrained, and need to be rebuilt in a way that's compatible with their constraints. To say nothing of the fact that these were people's homes, and are people's property, and they might have a say on how they would like to rebuild.

There are some real challenges facing LA w.r.t. family-size rental/affordable housing stock, insurance in fire-prone areas, insurance generally depending on state policy, etc. I hope the civic and political energy leveled against barriers to rebuilding in Altadena and the Palisades can later be focused on ongoing transit expansion and associated higher-density development, infill, etc, in the parts of the city where those make sense. But to pretend that these fires present some great opportunity to 'remake' Los Angeles as a whole is a misunderstanding at best, reductive and insulting at worst.

</rant>

by kristjansson

1/16/2025 at 8:45:07 PM

Thinking only flat areas are ripe for high-density urbanism is still a NIMBY mentality. Where I'm from there were much worse constraints yet the rate of growth by which cities are developed vastly outclasses the YIMBYest cities in the US let alone California.

There should be respect to the families that lost their property. But it's not insulting to suggest that NIMBY development exarcebates disasters like this. Heck if land use was as productive as it should in America most of those families wouldn't have a good chunk of their wealth evaporates as a result of a natural disaster, and rebuilding would've been hella more faster and cheaper.

by aimanbenbaha

1/16/2025 at 7:29:19 PM

It seems to me that right solution is to upzone Altadena. Small apartment buildings work fine in dense suburbs.

The other part is that if can’t upzone Palisades to upzone other areas instead. It makes sense to build denser close to transit than force it on rich areas in the hills.

by ianburrell

1/16/2025 at 9:10:58 PM

> upzone other areas instead

Yes. This is what we're already doing around the transit we already have. I hope the camaraderie and community drives us to build more, faster.

> upzone Altadena > upzone Palisades

Why? Why is it imperative that we take this disaster as an opportunity to advance policy change in the affected areas specifically? Why should we build denser housing in areas that are clearly at risk for fire?

by kristjansson

1/16/2025 at 7:53:42 PM

It was also just destroyed by fire so probably a bad idea to rebuild there.

by rayiner

1/16/2025 at 8:44:01 PM

I was going to include a bit about that, but my comment was already kinda long. All the other reasons besides, the events of the last week should be an indication to the would-be urban planners that the __burn scar__ is perhaps not the best place to locate new high-density density development.

That said I hope policy and prudence drive homeowners that rebuild SFH to include more fire-safety and fire-resistant features. Closed eaves, pool-fed sprinklers, automated shutters, (pains me to say) landscaping setbacks, ...

by kristjansson

1/16/2025 at 8:57:45 PM

"You can't build dense buildings on a mountain side"

What are you talking about?!? Downtown San Francisco has easily 4x the density of the area and it's built on mountains. Italy has dense villages on the sides of mountains all over the place. The idea that nobody can build density in 2025 because of some type of geological feature is just ridiculous, self-serving, nothing should change ever talk.

by scoofy

1/16/2025 at 9:02:47 PM

None of SF's dense apartment buildings are on hills, there is a good reason for that. You could terrace them like they do in Chongqing, but even in HK they tend to build in valleys between mountains except for luxury condo housing (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Levels). Italy follows the same pattern as SF.

by seanmcdirmid

1/16/2025 at 9:32:09 PM

That's just not true. Russian Hill has plenty of highrises that were built in the 1970s: https://maps.app.goo.gl/LukSfpMG5DnumTL79

The point isn't that LA should force the area to be highrises. The point is that it should be legal, in a housing crisis, to increase the density of one of the lowest density neighborhoods in LA, which is already an incredibly low density city.

Literally just building row houses instead of SFH's would easily double the density. Three-unit row houses like in much of hilly SF would increase the density by 6x. The idea that we either need skyscrapers or SFH's is exactly the problem with our zoning laws. People should be able to build multi-unit when the demand is there.

by scoofy

1/16/2025 at 9:55:40 PM

The point was that the headline numbers don't really represent the amount of existing development that was destroyed. There's been lots of comparisons of the area to e.g. Manhattan which I think drives some of these think-pieces that act like there's a city-sized blank-canvas area to rebuild.

Could we have built on more of the burned-over mountainside? Maybe? I'm not sure SF is the right comparison though. Just the developed portion affected by the Palisades fire ranges from sea level to 450m elevation (over ~2.5mi straight-line distance); Temescal Peak is 650m. Most of developed peninsular SF is below 100m elevation. Its more like trying to densifiy Berkely or Pacifica or Carmel by building apartment buildings up their hills.

Doable? Probably. But why go to the trouble? Why take the fire and seismic risk of building dense housing on a mountainside when LA is spoiled for space in the basin and valley?

by kristjansson

1/16/2025 at 10:35:15 PM

Twin Peaks is 282m in elevation. There many, many multi unit developments exactly at the top: https://maps.app.goo.gl/rm73b1j67W3u8uYo9

I'm just so sick and tired of ignorant people pretending that elevation, grade, or seismic matter at all when Japan exists, and builds high density housing, regularly in conditions that are vastly more inhospitable than coastal California. Pretending that suburban SFH are safer and more economical is just backward.

>Why go to the trouble?

Because density more efficient, can pay for it's own infrastructure in the long run: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason...

It is also less prone to fire risk.

Building suburban SFHs requires everyone else to subsidize it's development, which is already happening exactly with the California FAIR Plan, which will now require literally everyone in the United States to pay more on their homeowners insurances policies to compensate for the predictable losses here, if the system isn't just federally bailed out directly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_FAIR_Plan

by scoofy

1/17/2025 at 1:03:00 AM

> I'm just so sick and tired of ignorant people pretending that elevation, grade, or seismic matter at all

If they don't matter at all, there's tons of steep lots you can buy in the hills for like 10-50k with neighboring houses in the mid-to-high millions. People say they're unbuildable but apparently there's no such thing?

More seriously, I generally agree with most what you're saying. It should be easier to increase density in Los Angeles. By-right ADUs & JADUs, 4-unit TIC conversions, transit-oriented dvelopment are all a good start. We should do more. I shouldn't see anything but the back of apartment buildings from my window on the Expo line. 500k people should live in DTLA. Wilshire should look like Tokyo as soon as the train is done.

It's just weird to bring this energy to such a tragic situation. I don't think you could honestly say Altadena and the Palisades were the top two areas you'd focus on increasing density prior to Jan 7. They're no closer, nor easier to connect to transit, nor less fire-prone today than they were then. Most of the SFH that was destroyed in the Palisades were $3-9m[1] houses on 1/8th acre lots i.e. doing a pretty good job paying their own way on their infrastructure. The insurance stuff is going to be a pain, but I expect the prospective-risk model that was just authorized will force homeowners to bear more of their risk (and thereby apply some market forces to land-use decisions in the rebuild). And if the highest-GDP county in the highest-GDP state in the county needs, for once, a bit of Federal help it'd be hard to characterize that as unfair.

To focus on them as a place to enact specific parts of your urban-design vision (however good it is!) feels just as exploitive as 'investors' trying to buy lots cheaply to remake in the image _they_ prefer. These are our friends and neighbors, victims of a disaster. We should help them rebuild as quickly and prudently as possible, so we all can continue pulling the city toward a denser, safer, healthier future.

[1]: yes yes some prop 13 bases in there that I'm approximating away sue me.

by kristjansson

1/17/2025 at 2:57:06 AM

>If they don't matter at all, there's tons of steep lots you can buy in the hills for like 10-50k with neighboring houses in the mid-to-high millions. People say they're unbuildable but apparently there's no such thing?

Except that it was literally illegal to build anything except SFH's, until the state removed R1 zoning, and even now, you can generally only get two units. They are "unbuildable" because the projects won't pencil, not because we don't have the engineering capabilities.

>It's just weird to bring this energy to such a tragic situation.

I will be completely honest, that the move to exempt wildfire victims from the regulations that anyone without an established home has to deal with is one of the most self-serving, "rules for thee but not for me," results I've seen in my lifetime.

The housing system in CA is broken, and instead of taking this as an opportunity to fix it, we just exempt the very people who benefit from the broken situation most. It's perfectly legal, but it's deeply inequitable.

Is that insensitive of me? I want these people to be able to rebuild as soon as possible, but pretending it's not wildly inequitable to not change the rules for everyone, is just myopia.

To double down on my admittedly unpopular concerns, by allowing people to rebuild without exemption but not fixing the underlying issues, we've opened the door for one of the biggest cases of moral hazard I've ever seen. Call me cynical, but if some disgruntled and unscrupulous homeowner is in a fight with the Coastal Commission, they now know that a wildfire will likely let them do what they want. It's not something 99.9% of folks would do, but the incentives are right there. Moral hazard should be taken seriously.

>Most of the SFH that was destroyed in the Palisades were $3-9m[1] houses on 1/8th acre lots i.e. doing a pretty good job paying their own way on their infrastructure.

As you know the vast majority of them are not paying property taxes at that rate, and never will.

by scoofy

1/17/2025 at 4:26:50 AM

> moral hazard

Even SBF wouldn’t take that risk. Billions of dollars of personal liability against … the coastal commission lets you build 110% of the house you already had? Gotta do it a few times to get enough additional square footage to make it worthwhile…

The expedited permissions aren’t carte blanche, they’re pretty limited to rebuilding in place. Which I think you know since you’re agitating for looser regulations to allow the kind of development you’d prefer instead. Does the moral hazard work the other way? Should we worry about Strongtowns readers torching neighborhoods they want to rebuild?

> vast majority

Assessments are public record. Go poke around on the assessors map. There’s a fair share of low bases like my footnote said, but plenty of houses traded over the last 5-10 years, and plenty of people are paying 20-50k a year.

> take this opportunity

Again why does this disaster demand we also solve the housing crisis at the same time? We lost <1% of housing stock, it’s not like we’re rebuilding a leveled city. Work toward policies that that will incentivize the development you’d prefer in places it makes sense across the city, don’t be gross and seize on a crisis to try to impose the change you want.

by kristjansson

1/17/2025 at 4:41:01 AM

> We lost <1% of housing stock, it’s not like we’re rebuilding a leveled city.

In a shortage, marginal consumers wipe out the consumer surplus. The new marginal consumer is now a multi-millionaire. Housing prices will spike dramatically in LA, in every neighborhood, for a decade.

That frictional pain is going to make the median person mad, and harm many peoples’ lives. We should talk again in a year when that new reality has settled in.

by scoofy

1/16/2025 at 4:59:35 PM

A lot of single-family housing burned in the fires. For the sake of density, we need to put in more apartments, and ones that don't cost $3-4K/mo for a 1-2 bed. Metro is expanding ahead of the Olympics, and Waymo services a decent chunk of the city (not the burned areas though); you could go with less parking to save costs, but a lot of folks have roommates, so you end up needing double the parking, and that clogs up the streets... there are no easy answers to this situation, unfortunately.

by unquietwiki

1/16/2025 at 5:13:05 PM

LA is one of the most car-centric cities I've ever seen. "we can have less parking" would require a fundamental shift in culture.

Doing it right after a major fire where people are alive precisely because they were able to put themselves and a few belongings into their personal vehicle and go where they could shelter with friends or family is bordering on an impossible ask.

by calciphus

1/16/2025 at 8:17:57 PM

Plenty of people had to abandon their cars and flee on foot

by sagarm

1/16/2025 at 5:46:50 PM

in 10 years time self-driving will be all over LA, we should build with foresight

by whimsicalism

1/16/2025 at 5:51:57 PM

I think this is optimistic.

by grajaganDev

1/16/2025 at 5:56:24 PM

The idea that self-driving cars will be anywhere in any timeframe is actually very pessimistic to me.

by grardb

1/16/2025 at 6:01:29 PM

really? i can already call a self-driving car in LA but the idea that this will scale up in the next 10 years is out there?

by whimsicalism

1/17/2025 at 1:39:49 PM

Waymo is not self driving. It’s remote operated, much more expensive. People will not give up their vehicle for an expensive taxi service. There are no self driving cars that actually work and there are none on the horizon.

by HDThoreaun

1/17/2025 at 3:29:58 PM

it’s not remote operated and it is also not much more expensive and i have no idea why you assume costs will be constant.

i take waymos all the time, often replacing my car, i have never had a single issue

by whimsicalism

1/17/2025 at 3:32:24 PM

Literally so easy to find out that it’s remote operated with the operators taking over on average once per mile. That can’t scale in a cost effective way unless you only use it like once a week. People who need to drive everyday can’t afford it. Otherwise they’d just be ubering everywhere now instead of owning a car.

by HDThoreaun

1/17/2025 at 3:39:16 PM

you literally do not know what you’re talking about, source me a number on the “once per mile” intervention - i’ve driven hundreds of miles in waymo and never had an intervention

of course they can scale in a cost effective manner, the operating costs are theoretically the same as just owning a car but they get to amortize it across many different users and don’t have to pay for human labor

by whimsicalism

1/17/2025 at 7:28:58 PM

They do have to pay the human labor because it’s not self driving.

by HDThoreaun

1/17/2025 at 9:09:55 PM

source your claims. i’m pretty sure waymo doesn’t even support remote operation as such, just waypoint drawing

by whimsicalism

1/16/2025 at 5:56:59 PM

I don't see what that's got to do with city planning and increasing density.

by thrance

1/16/2025 at 6:02:10 PM

feel like it has obvious salience around the necessity of parking requirements going forward just like if a rail line opened up near you

by whimsicalism

1/16/2025 at 6:01:33 PM

No need to wait 10 years, Waymo currently operates in LA.

by fragmede

1/16/2025 at 6:46:36 PM

In a service area that _very_ purposefully stops before the sort of narrow, hilly streets that covered most of the evacuation zones.

by kristjansson

1/16/2025 at 6:58:05 PM

yeah i’m sure that’ll stay the same for 10 years, technology famously stays constant

by whimsicalism

1/16/2025 at 7:13:00 PM

I suspect you're right, I was pointing out the current limits.

But so what if they do have full coverage in 10 years? We can build apartments with no/fewer parking spaces, and therefore somewhat lower costs. Why do we build those sort of apartments on some of the most desirable land on the planet? Look at the One Coast development on the bottom of Sunset - denser than SFH, plenty of parking, and no trouble selling condos starting at $3-5m. At that's at the bottom of the hill!

by kristjansson

1/16/2025 at 7:16:19 PM

why should we only build large buildings in places where poor people live? i don't see why these neighborhoods should be reserved for the wealthy rather than mixed income if the demand is there. generally the market pressure for larger buildings is going to be highest in wealthy areas and for good reason

by whimsicalism

1/16/2025 at 8:36:21 PM

They're not reserved for the wealthy, they're desirable. Self-driving and associated parking minimum reductions doesn't materially change those economics. If you had permission to build large buildings with an ocean view and beach access ... you'd build it with parking and start the studios at $1m like they do half a mile away on Ocean. Build 115% of the units by omitting parking, and you'd probably still sell a studio for $1m, honestly. The demand is deep, global, and pretty inelastic.

Does Monaco have apartments for $300k? Does the LES? West Palm Beach?

by kristjansson

1/16/2025 at 5:58:51 PM

The reason modern apartments in LA cost an arm and a leg is the same one for why new houses are no longer starter homes but McMansions.

by ravenstine

1/16/2025 at 8:21:46 PM

McMansion is a Texan thing. New homes in LA are a fairly boxy west coast style. Box housing maximizes square footage use and takes advantage of the fact that it doesn't really snow in LA so no very sloping roof is needed.

by seanmcdirmid

1/16/2025 at 5:38:53 PM

We shouldn’t rebuild at all in many of these places.

by rayiner

1/16/2025 at 5:50:58 PM

We should build glass and steel high density apartment buildings with no parking.

by grajaganDev

1/17/2025 at 1:12:14 PM

This would shift the political dynamics in the rest of the US as people left for car-friendly cities where they could own their homes.

by indymike

1/17/2025 at 1:41:40 PM

You can’t get to these areas without driving. Where will the residents park?

by HDThoreaun

1/16/2025 at 6:06:41 PM

Those apartments would all cost more than 3k a month. Putting up high rises in LA is expensive. (Earthquakes, fires, etc). So there is zero motivation for developers to not get the maximum amount of rent possible for a given square footage.

No one has explained why a given developer should rent for less than 3K when they could easily rent the same space fo 4K? Is the government providing an incentive covering the shortfall?

by bilbo0s

1/16/2025 at 7:17:56 PM

Build enough housing & prices go down. It's worked everywhere it has been tried, and it'll work in LA, too.

by lavelganzu

1/16/2025 at 6:57:29 PM

Density is an imperative for Los Angeles, and big sprawl-y cities generally. And we're building density! DTLA is getting more residential, train stops are getting surrounded by everything from 5+1s to superblocks, Santa Monica is getting taller, ...

That global imperative does not translate into a local demand that every SFH (and in particular, these SFHs) be replaced with denser housing. As you realize in your comment, the damaged areas aren't exactly well-positioned to support substantially denser housing.

by kristjansson

1/16/2025 at 8:18:45 PM

These are the palisades though so very hilly with lots of great views. I can't really imagine building apartments up there, and they are really not very centrally located anyways, not like lower Brentwood or most of Santa Monica.

Even Hong Kong builds mostly between its hills and only on them when really rich people are involved (e.g. Victoria Peak).

by seanmcdirmid

1/16/2025 at 5:28:04 PM

Malibu and the Palisades were exclusive neighborhoods where celebrities and other well-off industry personnel lived. They're not adding low income apartments or execute any urbanist pipe-dream for the same reason they're not bulldozing Pac Heights to install homeless shelters. Not going to happen. Ever.

by likeabatterycar

1/16/2025 at 6:28:50 PM

It's a bit paradoxical that people on HN believe anything is possible in technology - we're going to live on Mars! - but advocate hopelessness in other matters.

It's just like technology: If you make it happen, it will happen. If you don't, it won't. Some people are working hard, developing the technology, while many sit around saying it's impossible, etc.

Opportunity knocks, right now. There's no guarantee of success. Let's go!

by mmooss

1/17/2025 at 1:42:44 PM

Politics is much harder than technological innovation.

by HDThoreaun

1/17/2025 at 6:18:57 PM

For some people!

by mmooss

1/16/2025 at 6:05:38 PM

This. It's not like all of downtown LA was leveled and we get to re-imagine it through rose-colored glasses.

by laweijfmvo

1/16/2025 at 5:44:49 PM

the electorate controls the people with guns, so we can kinda make whatever we want happen if we vote for it

by whimsicalism

1/16/2025 at 5:54:58 PM

> the electorate controls the people with guns, so we can kinda make whatever we want happen if we vote for it

"Do it the way we want or die" is a pretty bold take.

Are you going to enforce this or demand to have law enforcement or even military units do it?

by caseysoftware

1/16/2025 at 6:02:24 PM

Ultimately this is the basis for governance, including zoning and code enforcement. However, I agree with your sentiment.

You'll notice the loaded language used in the title of the article: "California's future depends on how leaders rebuild". Ideally I would think that the landowners should have priority in deciding what is built on their land. After all it is still at least nominally their private property.

Expect further arguments towards a subjectively perceived "greater collective good" to follow from that point. After this is established, the ends justify the means. In this case, the above poster explicitly describes the means as "men with guns".

by palmfacehn

1/16/2025 at 6:32:55 PM

> Ultimately this is the basis for governance

That's a myth / fantasy of gun and violence zealots and anti-liberals.

Obviously, to scholars and to anyone looking at the world, the basis for governance is consent. There are not enough guns in the world to do it otherwise. And I've never and I don't know anyone who has ever done something because the government pointed a gun at them. They did it because they are law-abiding people, social beings, and want a fair, ordered society.

by mmooss

1/16/2025 at 7:29:21 PM

> the basis for governance is consent

For governance, perhaps, but not for government.

A trivial example: I do not consent to the authority of my city, county, state, or country. I have withheld that consent my entire life, and yet all those levels of government continue to not only exist, but to grow.

by Ancapistani

1/16/2025 at 9:52:34 PM

You're weird. Humans normally, almost all consent.

by mmooss

1/16/2025 at 10:53:00 PM

… and those humans who do not consent are coerced by any means necessary, up to and including force.

by Ancapistani

1/16/2025 at 6:37:03 PM

I don't suspect that OP fails to understand the importance of consent, but I do suspect that you fail to understand the importance of lawful carefully-target violence.

by hollerith

1/16/2025 at 9:53:57 PM

I understand the fantasy of a world where sociality doesn't exist. Maybe nerds find it easier to calculate, not understanding the social part well at all.

by mmooss

1/16/2025 at 10:13:18 PM

If our police departments and jails were disbanded and torn down, would that constitute an improvement or a worsening of our society in your opinion?

by hollerith

1/16/2025 at 11:02:03 PM

always a sign of a winning argument when you call your interlocutors nerds

by whimsicalism

1/17/2025 at 3:17:10 AM

It's not an insult to me; is it to you?

by mmooss

1/16/2025 at 6:02:26 PM

? that is how all laws ultimately work

by whimsicalism

1/16/2025 at 6:33:25 PM

It's not, except around the fringes. Consent is how governance works.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42729029

by mmooss

1/16/2025 at 6:07:12 PM

In practice, yes. In principle, it is a matter for debate.

by palmfacehn

1/16/2025 at 7:27:10 PM

It may be California, but it's still the US. The electorate are the people with guns.

by Ancapistani

1/16/2025 at 5:37:30 PM

Altadena isn't one of those exclusive neighbourhoods though.

by piva00

1/16/2025 at 5:47:41 PM

Middle class and minorities in Altadena don't want to raise their families in Soviet-style apartments because some hipster urbanist thinks its best. They want SFH, that's why they live there.

by likeabatterycar

1/16/2025 at 6:20:56 PM

Using those buzzwords really doesn't invite much of a conversation, even less when it's basically strawmanning from your part. Still I will bite a bit...

There are many examples of places around the world who managed to intersperse SFH with medium-density housing (3-4 stories apartment buildings) so it's not an either-or situation. For example: many suburbs of Stockholm have developed this way, it allows options based on people's budgets and needs, while also creating enough density to attract local businesses so people are not entirely car-dependent for basic necessities, creates third places for meetings, etc.

I'm preaching to the choir though, I do understand you will probably never understand or see it that way given the vitriol you started with. It's quite sad because there are other ways for a community to live that can cater to different needs where mixed-housing exists while also making these neighbourhoods more interesting and livable in themselves.

by piva00

1/16/2025 at 5:54:34 PM

But those celebrities and other well-off industry personnel are now burned out.

The city could issue no permits to rebuild SFH on that land and then buy it for 15-minute walkable development.

by grajaganDev

1/16/2025 at 6:00:16 PM

If they want to be in litigation with angry deep pocketed people for a few decades, sure.

by ceejayoz

1/16/2025 at 5:57:25 PM

You are living in a fantasy.

by umanwizard

1/16/2025 at 6:18:48 PM

It may be a fantasy for some, but for those who are derided as conspiracy theorists, it is a nightmare scenario.

by palmfacehn

1/16/2025 at 5:28:46 PM

Everyone wants to rebuild in accordance with their favorite urban planning theory.

Very few want to give developers the profits they need to match the profits they get rebuilding in accordance with maximizing the return on their investments.

People asking for cheap apartments are just not being realistic. Why rent that square footage at less than luxury prices when the market will readily eat up the square footage at prices far exceeding the national luxury median?

And that’s before we even get to the people who want condos or luxury homes.

You would basically need to make a law that caps how much an owner can make on his land for some of these ideas to work.

by bilbo0s

1/16/2025 at 6:04:03 PM

It's amazing how many are in denial about this. If it were so self evident that cheaper apartments were worthwhile to developers in LA, then we'd be seeing more new ones being built as opposed to the luxury megacomplexes that have been popping up everywhere.

by ravenstine

1/16/2025 at 6:48:00 PM

It's literally illegal to build anything other than a SFH in most of LA. It's no wonder why cheap apartments aren't being built.

by ProfessorLayton

1/16/2025 at 5:43:24 PM

building up gets you more square feet and is almost certainly going to be the profit maximizing approach delta regulation in an environment like this

by whimsicalism

1/16/2025 at 5:52:48 PM

Sure.

And that’s where luxury condos and apartments come in.

There is no scenario where building for less than luxury returns makes sense in these areas. Renting a set square footage for 1500 makes no sense when I can rent the same square footage for 3200.

And that’s at the bottom end.

by bilbo0s

1/16/2025 at 7:18:48 PM

i find the word 'luxury' not very useful in these discussions. they wouldn't be luxury compared to a SFH in the same area, they would be lowering price.

> Renting a set square footage for 1500 makes no sense when I can rent the same square footage for 3200.

uhhh, except for location?

by whimsicalism

1/16/2025 at 5:36:20 PM

Multiple apartments should be more profitable than a single family luxury home.

by bryanlarsen

1/16/2025 at 5:42:04 PM

Not in some of these areas. This was some of the best real estate in the country. $80M homes burned down.

by orionsbelt

1/16/2025 at 5:44:03 PM

generally “most expensive real estate in country” is where profits from apartments/condos is highest, not the other way around

by whimsicalism

1/16/2025 at 6:04:38 PM

Not up in the hills or on oceanside lots on the Pacific Ocean next to the PCH. I’m no builder, but my sense is, even if the zoning were relaxed, you are at best building like a quadplex. Four apartments are not going to equal an $80M home.

Maybe in the flats of the palisades.

by orionsbelt

1/16/2025 at 6:53:27 PM

$70m of that $80m house is the land its on, and that hasn't been destroyed.

by ta1243

1/16/2025 at 7:32:31 PM

It depends.

How much of that location value was because of the views, proximity to LA proper, etc.?

How much of it was due to the types of houses that were in those specific neighborhoods and the type of people that lived in them?

If the "rich and famous" don't return to those neighborhoods and rebuild their multi-million dollar homes, those parcels will be worth significantly less.

by Ancapistani

1/16/2025 at 5:46:09 PM

Multiple luxury condos? Definitely.

Multiple luxury apartments? Maybe? Depending on amenities and view.

But multiple non luxury apartments for the hoi polloi? Not a chance. I challenge even the politicians championing non luxury apartments to run the numbers and make them work. They just don’t.

People are out here advocating that we make multiple apartments available all under 3K. That’s insanity. The same space can easily be rented for much more than 3K. If I’m a developer, what’s my motivation to forgo that ludicrously high return? Being a good guy? I’ll take the return and make a donation to the boys and girls club instead thank you very much.

by bilbo0s

1/16/2025 at 5:31:30 PM

After the Santa Rosa fires in 2017, that city’s leaders ignored local worker pressure to increase density in favor of leaving zoning unchanged and letting family people rebuild single-family sprawl. Rents never dropped from their 25%+ increase that year and the region’s economy has been depressed since due to workers having less pay and landlords who spend their rents in other counties. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in cities like LA after they predictably burn each year, now that the “zone it for density or we invalidate your zoning” laws are in place. Forest mismanagement fires are making up for weak-willed politicians unwilling to use eminent domain for anything but highways and that is a force of change that some city will eventually take advantage of. I hope, anyways.

by altairprime

1/16/2025 at 7:43:56 PM

Just don't make houses out of flammable materials. Easy. Exterior walls must be cinder block filled with concrete and rebar or poured concrete with lots of rebar and perhaps fiber reinforcement. Roofs must be metal or ceramic or stone.

by UltraSane

1/16/2025 at 8:00:10 PM

Most rural houses in Australia are built this way. They still burn down.

I don't think anyone really understands how intense wildfires can get when fanned by wind. It will destroy almost anything.

See: Black Saturday bushfires, Australia.

> "it really made no difference whether the houses were brick or timber. In fact, with the speed of the fire front some timber houses fared better than brick as it moved too fast for the houses to catch, but the bricks exploded from the sudden change in temperature."

> "When you have a fire front coming through at 800C it'll melt your window seals and aluminum window frames. The glass will fall out then everything is on fire.

by nrki

1/16/2025 at 8:19:13 PM

In the LA fire most home fires were ignited by the trillions of red hot embers driven by the wind. If these embers can ignite a home then the house is lost. So the key is to make the house from materials that resist ignition from wind driven embers.

by UltraSane

1/16/2025 at 8:11:53 PM

Would cinder blocks and concrete be a good fit for standing up to the earthquakes that California is prone to?

by harimau777

1/16/2025 at 8:20:08 PM

If designed correctly they could be. It is an interesting actuarial problem which risk should be mitigated in home design.

by UltraSane

1/16/2025 at 5:12:39 PM

Not surprised to read political takes on reconstruction from Vox. It may be a little bit early for this.

by palmfacehn

1/16/2025 at 6:52:39 PM

A useful alternative would be the Longreads article from 2018, discussing the history of the region that burned and how it was known to be a fire danger from the beginning (and has burned every so often as predicted):

https://longreads.com/2018/12/04/the-case-for-letting-malibu...

> The 1930 Decker Canyon fire was a worst-case scenario involving 50-year-old chaparral and a fierce Santa Ana. Faced with a five-mile front of towering flames

> Despite a further series of fires in 1935, 1936, and 1938 which destroyed almost four hundred homes in Malibu and Topanga Canyon, public officials stubbornly disregarded

> He also provided a classic account of the onslaught of the terrible firestorm of Christmas week 1956, which, burning its way to the sea, retraced the path of the 1930 blaze.

And identifies that the policy of colonizing wildfire-prone zones with single family homes was set in the late 50s:

> By declaring Malibu a federal disaster area and offering blaze victims tax relief as well as preferential low-interest loans, the Eisenhower administration established a precedent for the public subsidization of firebelt suburbs.

Fires continued, of course, like clockwork:

> The next firestorm, in late September 1970, coupled perfect fire weather (drought conditions, 100-degree heat, 3 percent humidity, and an 85-mile-per-hour Santa Ana wind) with a bumper crop of combustible wood-frame houses. According to firefighters, the popular cedar shake roofs “popped like popcorn” as a 20-mile wall of flames roared across the ridgeline of the Santa Monicas toward the sea

And so on. So I wouldn’t say it’s “too early” for political takes on reconstruction; this debate — Oh No Fires! What Next For Zoning? — has been going on for almost one hundred years, even if it’s news to the current decade that this was ever a risk.

by altairprime

1/17/2025 at 8:24:38 AM

The article suggests off-hand that higher-density development is less fire-prone, but does not explain this claim any further. Can someone here help me with an explanation? Is it a matter of typical materials?

by jhanschoo

1/16/2025 at 5:06:46 PM

California leaders haven't made good decisions since the 70s. So basically we're doomed.

by zeroonetwothree

1/16/2025 at 5:20:12 PM

Oakland just shut down 2 Fire Stations in the hills where the risk of fires is the highest, with up to 7 more on the horizon due to budget cuts.

https://www.kqed.org/news/12021505/a-tragedy-waiting-to-happ...

In fact the station that responded first to the fires of last October was the one cut.

https://oaklandside.org/2024/10/22/oakland-budget-cuts-firef...

The government officials argue that there is no money, but in reality, almost every department is seeing budget increases other than the fire department. The city administrators are getting 3x the money than last budget. California leaders are the absolute bottom of the barrel.

Edit: this just from yesterday https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/response-time-for-oaklan...

by darth_avocado

1/16/2025 at 5:26:59 PM

The government officials argue that there hasn't been any budget cut or mismanagement, they made an entire website about it: www.californiafirefacts.com

Though, charitably, I suppose the city-level mismanagement that you're talking about do not directly contradict gavin's claims about state/federal level cuts. Maybe.

by tredre3

1/16/2025 at 5:39:21 PM

Prop 13 is the third rail of California politics that is choking the state.

Until someone is willing to grab the nettle and fix the property tax situation to be fair and equitable to everyone then California cities are eventually going to run out of money to maintain infrastructure.

by spiralpolitik

1/16/2025 at 5:43:24 PM

> Prop 13

Presumably it's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13

> Proposition 13 (officially named the People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation) is an amendment of the Constitution of California enacted during 1978, by means of the initiative process, to cap property taxes and limit property reassessments to when the property changes ownership, and to require a 2/3 majority for tax increases in the state legislature.

by barbazoo

1/16/2025 at 6:03:31 PM

Yes, that Prop 13.

The insidious part is that commercial real estate in California is paying the same rates as they were when the building was built, despite the fact that the value of the building has increased many times since and the building "changing" ownership many times since.

The second insidious part is that because of the enhancements to the tax code over the years it's possible to continue to pay 1978 property tax rates in perpetuity, and even pass those rates on to your descendants. You can even transfer those super low rates to a new property in some cases.

New buyers get screwed because they will be paying at today's rates. So you could be paying 10x more property tax as your neighbor for the same city services.

by spiralpolitik

1/16/2025 at 6:10:08 PM

Prop 13 may be a part of the problem, but not the biggest. The biggest problem is the same as all the other cities without prop 13 in the country that have budget issues: pensions.

A lot of government officials abuse the system and get exhorbidant pensions, especially when early retirement options start at 50.

by darth_avocado

1/16/2025 at 5:57:14 PM

Prop 13 applies to commercial real estate as well as residential.

The commercial part should be removed to increase tax income.

by grajaganDev

1/16/2025 at 7:32:36 PM

Public employee unions are the third rail of California politics that are choking the state. Central Valley farmers are the third rail of California politics that are choking the state. High-speed rail is the third rail of California politics that is choking the state. Free government services for illegal aliens are the third rail of California politics that are choking the state. We have plenty of rails, take your pick.

Fairness and equity are highly subjective. If you ask any Californian they will say that someone else should pay higher taxes. I support reform of the property tax system in general but let's not forget what triggered Proposition 13 in the first place: it was a taxpayer revolt against uncontrolled and unaccountable increases in local government spending. So any reform will still require an effective means of constraining government budgets. Otherwise we'll just end up back where we started.

by nradov

1/16/2025 at 5:30:49 PM

Can’t really speak about the entire state but in Oakland’s case, it is absolutely budget cuts. And closing 2 fire stations in the most fire prone area, where a recent major fire took place, can safely be called mismanagement.

by darth_avocado

1/16/2025 at 5:37:21 PM

Hypothetically speaking, if the event could be attributed to incompetence, mismanagement or malfeasance - Which incentives would drive elected officials or bureaucrats to take responsibility?

by palmfacehn

1/16/2025 at 5:42:57 PM

They’re not voted into office based on competency. The political offices are controlled by political machines; whomever has the support of the machine will likely win the election. So the incentive structure for the politicians is to optimize for the navigating the internal politics of the machine, not for competency. As long as you can’t be singled out for causing the machine too much embarrassment (and that might happen with Mayor Bass) there is no accountability.

by rayiner

1/16/2025 at 5:24:52 PM

[dead]

by sieabahlpark

1/16/2025 at 5:38:26 PM

It’s the same story in every place where elections are won through political machines that mobilize voters along ethnic lines (e.g. Chicago, New York City, etc.) Whoever controls the political machine will win the elections, regardless of competency. And to be clear this isn’t a red versus blue thing—even within the parties, specific factions control the machines.

by rayiner

1/16/2025 at 5:31:39 PM

When you keep rewarding bad decisions by voting for the same people such that they have a monopoly on elected offices, there really isn't a duty or motivation to perform well at their job. This isn't unique to California but it's one of the worst examples.

by likeabatterycar

1/16/2025 at 6:03:38 PM

Democratic state majority since Reagan and California still can't get anything done.

by rs999gti

1/16/2025 at 5:50:48 PM

It's a fair take. California is now unaffordable for most families and it's going to get worse.

Example: New construction in Santa Clarita (north Los Angeles county) $800k 3 bedroom town house. Even with ~50% down you are still looking around $4k+ per month in payments, with 25% of that amount being property tax.

You'll also likely be paying more due to Mello-Roos and with HOA and home insurance on top of that. Plus it's unlikely at this point you'll be able to get fire insurance.

Good luck trying to make the numbers work on the country medium income of ~$100k.

(And don't ask how someone on medium income can put 50% down on a $800k home).

by spiralpolitik

1/16/2025 at 6:04:20 PM

"And don't ask how someone on medium income can put 50% down on a $800k home)."

I believe there are a lot of families that pass down wealth, most of it being used to buy houses.

by yostrovs

1/16/2025 at 7:36:32 PM

A study of London[0] found that being bombed during the blitz was a net positive for the city, economically speaking, because the neighborhoods affected were rebuilt with more density.

This gave me the idea that we could improve long-term urban wealth by following an "urban Cheney's algorithm". A city could be divided into let's say 8 sectors, like pie slices extending from the center, and demolished on a schedule (e.g. one sector per decade). The orderly and predictable demolition would provide an even greater boon to the city than the Nazi bombing campaign provided to London, especially because the wide range of demolition would allow easier renovation of structures like roads, sewers, and transit lines and depots.

[0] https://academic.oup.com/joeg/article/21/6/869/6213370

by jhp123

1/16/2025 at 8:13:01 PM

It would also allow for planned relocation so that residents who are being disrupted could be guaranteed housing without cost increases, since it would cost essentially nothing relative to overall cost to provide them replacement homes in the higher density neighborhood just rebuilt. I believe Rohnert Park, which borders Santa Rosa, is already doing this (not with pie slices though). Definitely this is a known SimCity tactic to build a high density high wealth city! You just have to get the feeder road layout right.

by altairprime

1/17/2025 at 3:33:44 AM

Interesting Datapoint: the Camp Fire in 2019 completely destroyed the affluent town of Paradise California. Today it is only 30% recovered. Looking at some of the other data points around rebuilding in California, I don't think Los Angeles will recover from this at least a decade or more.

by underseacables

1/16/2025 at 8:27:22 PM

Leaders don’t build. They permit.

by more_corn

1/16/2025 at 6:29:43 PM

Would LA be bright enough to hire a Christopher Wren even if they knew him?

by readthenotes1

1/16/2025 at 6:06:17 PM

I still don't see how building more homes would fix the housing crisis. Aren't there like millions of uninhabited homes? Isn't the problem that landlords are free to extract as much money as they want to provide a necessity without adding any value to it? Wouldn't any solution necessarily involve a massive direct or indirect devaluation of properties?

by thrance

1/16/2025 at 7:27:24 PM

You think that building housing for more people won’t help the people who are looking for housing.

The vacant homes count any vacancy even if they are for sale or between tenants. It is impossible to use those for housing. And putting people in them means that normal buyer and tenants couldn’t live there.

Rent is a market and landlords can only charge what people can pay. More cheaper housing will drive down rents, or more likely slow down rent growth since prices are sticky.

Building more homes would make existing home less valuable but would make the land under the homes more valuable cause could be used for more valuable housing. I also think that remaining houses will be more valuable for people who want house over apartment.

by ianburrell

1/17/2025 at 12:05:13 AM

But if neither rent nor house price goes down, then we still have a crisis, don't we?

I've never seen rent go down or slow down as a result of market forces, it must be forced by the local government.

Why would building more homes drive price down? Why wouldn't the builders just sell it at market price?

by thrance

1/16/2025 at 7:11:14 PM

> Aren't there like millions of uninhabited homes?

No. Certainly not in places where people want to live.

Why would you think there are? Why would someone deliberately let their property deprecate while not earning an income, (setting aside the unearned speculation caused by land values increasing)

LA has about 2-3% empty homes. Higher than some global cities, but still a very small number.

by ta1243

1/16/2025 at 9:54:16 PM

What a totally vacuous article 8-/

This has no bearing whatsoever in how LA will be rebuilt.

The reconstruction in LA will follow the exact same principles that have governed the construction of all housing in southern california, ever.

That is, the housing will be rebuilt in the way that makes the destruction mafia the most money, right now.

This is the way it has ALWAYS been done, everywhere.

My house in San Diego is 105 years old. A craftsman cottage. It was built in 1920 in the way that made the construction company the most money, in the ~6 months it took them to build the structure and sell it.

The fact that the building has now been inhabited for 105 years, and massive money could have been saved in fuel and maintenance if more robust construction were used, had 0 impact on how it was built.

This is exactly how reconstruction in LA will now proceed. With 0 concern for the future consequences.

That is exactly how all housing is built, everywhere (in the US at least).

The suggestion that this is somehow dictated by, or curtailed by "leaders", is equally disconnected from reality.

Gavin, that plutocratic prick, will not take one step to curtail the profit of the destruction industry. This is illustrated by a large swath of recent CA legislation. For example, a state law that dictates that localities must allow construction of double the number of units if "affordable housing" is included in the project. The law of course, doesn't say "how much", or "what kind" of affordable housing must be included. Local North County San Diego municipalities were then successfully sued by developers who insisted that including 1 "affordable housing" unit in an entire project allowed doubling the number of "market value" housing units to be constructed.

This has all contributed to the unafforability of housing in southern california, and massively boosted profits for real estate developers.

If you want to make housing affordable in So Cal, outlaw short term rentals. That would be a great start.

But the long haul would require significantly curtailing laissez faire capitalism in housing construction. This is something that is just NOT going to happen under the so called "liberal" governance of the state..

by johnea

1/16/2025 at 5:53:27 PM

[flagged]

by jas39

1/16/2025 at 6:37:40 PM

Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.

by dang

1/16/2025 at 5:58:19 PM

This is an incredibly simplistic take.

by grajaganDev

1/16/2025 at 6:06:29 PM

If California does not do controlled burns to the underbrush like what nature or the American Indians were doing when the Conquistador arrived, then there will be more and more wildfires. This is regardless of climate change or what politicians are in power.

by rs999gti

1/16/2025 at 6:11:09 PM

What you are missing is that the homes themselves provided the fuel. It had nothing to do with underbrush or forest management.

by grajaganDev

1/16/2025 at 6:12:05 PM

Good luck doing a controlled burn where the smoke is going to blow into a rich neighborhood like the Palisades.

You'll be buried under so many environmental impact lawsuits that any burn will take years (if ever) to happen.

by spiralpolitik

1/16/2025 at 6:46:01 PM

People listening to the media are so confused.

by grajaganDev

1/16/2025 at 7:14:09 PM

Maybe so, but could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments like this one and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42728555? A good comment needs more information than this.

If you know more than others, that's great, but then please share some of what you know so the rest of us can learn. If you don't want to do that or don't have time, that's fine, but in that case it's best to just accept that the internet is wrong about everything and not reply.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

by dang

1/16/2025 at 11:34:22 PM

Because this isn't a very complicated topic. Cities built in bricks and stone don't burn. It is cheaper to clear brush than charred remains. If the fire insurance costs >$100/month, something is very wrong. Only complete mismanagement could have caused this. It does not happen in other places.

by jas39

1/16/2025 at 5:44:06 PM

[dead]

by hyperliner

1/16/2025 at 5:27:04 PM

by lysace

1/16/2025 at 5:43:28 PM

Honestly, that's not wild at all to me. They invented AI with other people's money. But they have to use their own money to fight fire.

by iamtheworstdev