A Needed Fix to Malibu's Rebuild Program

If Malibu’s past rebuild efforts are a prelude of what the burnout victims of the Palisades fire can expect to encounter, they should not expect to return to the city reasonably soon, if ever.

This sadly despite assurances at the City’s endless meetings, workshops and gatherings of an improved, expedited permit process, personified by a welcoming staff and the promise of a one stop plan review; further enhanced by Governor Newsom’s waving of Coastal Commission and State plan approvals.

Seeding the skepticism that however sincere the pledges of a revitalized rebuild program are, the harsh reality is that the plans of hundreds of the those left homeless in the Woosley Fire of more than six years ago are still in that disaster’s rebuild purgatory. Adding salt to their wounds is knowing the process was compromised to favor select real estate interests and political hacks who still haunt City Hall.

But the crux of the problem then and now is the critical presence in the process of imperious bureaucrats of questionable expertise and a covetous gaggle of officious consultants; this according to professionals who have been involved in the permit processing trenches, and understandably will not state publicly in fear of retribution. Inspectors can be nasty.

With a few exceptions, these in-house planning apparatchiks are readily identified as the fatty obstruction clogging Malibu’s hardened bureaucratic arteries; and are further said to tend to avoid making the hard decisions needed to expedite permits. That usually depends on how long they can milk the reviews to respectively generate overtime, billable hours, and possibly a few perks on the side.

Clearly needed is some surgery in the permit process to scrap out the clogs if City Hall sincerely wants to aid residents to rebuild and not have their properties end up the claws of hovering real estate vultures to pad their listings at a tidy profit.

And that indeed is what is recommended in a challenging, most welcomed post L.A. wildfire report labeled “Project Recovery,” compiled pro bono by the real estate graduate schools at USC and UCLA, along with the local chapter of the Urban Land Institute.

Particularly pertinent I feel to Malibu is the report’s recommendations of a permit self-certification program, under which State licensed and insured architects, engineers and design professionals could “self-certify” building plans and specifications as compliant with objective building code requirements.

Eligible projects would include single family homes, accessory dwelling units, and possibly apartments and commercial projects. How inclusive the program would depend on the City and importantly if the building sites were relatively unencumbered by atypical constraints, such as the beachfront properties. Their fate no doubt will be decided beyond the City, at the County and State levels.

For the most other burnout rebuilds under self -certification there would be no need for the dreaded over-the counter reviews by planning personnel, only isolated site inspections with dire consequences if the professionals involved were found to have violated the building codes.

As an aside, this just might free the here-to-fore harassed public planners to do some real planning, instead of being building code police.

Malibu residents alert to the outlier process have labeled it “pro certification,” rather than “self-certification,” noting that it will be conducted by professionals who they add can be trusted over CIty staff because, frankly, “they know more,” and their reputation is on the line.

And this would include geo technical reviews, which frankly are seen as the biggest stumbling block in the permitting process in landslide prone Malibu, with consultants being accused of arbitrary and capricious, showing favoritism to the larger projects because they generate thicker reports and more billable hours.

With self-certification the City will be less reliant on consultants, and therefore in a better position to bargain for their services, no small item in the city‘s budget.

Self or pro certification may be a radical fix to the permitting process, but these are radical times for an ailing Malibu.