Governor’s actions and local efforts push permit approvals for LA fire recovery forward at rapid pace

LOS ANGELES – Following the Los Angeles firestorm earlier this year, Governor Gavin Newsom quickly took action to help accelerate recovery, issuing multiple executive orders, taking legislative action, and providing new resources to speed up the permitting and building processes. As a result, permits to rebuild homes in the Los Angeles area are moving forward at a pace that is on average nearly three times faster than permits for single-family homes and ADUs in the five years before the fires. While each jurisdiction tracks data slightly differently, and data reflects a particular point in time,  aggregated information shows rebuilding permits are, on average, issued in fewer than three months.

State streamlining and grants lead to faster reviews

This accelerated permitting approval is in part thanks to the Governor’s orders suspending CEQA and Coastal Act requirements to rebuild homes damaged or destroyed by the fires. In alignment with the Governor’s executive orders, local governments have created fast-tracked permitting pathways for fire rebuilds, eliminating unnecessary reviews and streamlining local processes. In addition, local agencies have used $4 million in state grant funding to increase staffing and resources, further accelerating timelines.  

As a result, local agencies are processing permits with, on average, fewer than 30 days of local review time.  

State support reduces delays 

The average time from application to permit issuance for rebuilding homes across these agencies is approximately 85 days, which includes time spent by homeowners and their design teams making revisions to bring their plans up to code. 

The Governor has taken a number of actions to streamline this process, including:

• Suspending building codes for residents rebuilding from the fires to create certainty and avoid the need to modify applications and lengthen the permitting process.  This includes allowing homeowners who built their homes to the standards in the 2019 Building Code to use their previously approved plans, and a suspension of building codes that would have gone into effect on January 1, 2026, when not all homeowners will have finalized their plans to rebuild.
• Providing locals with AI-powered plan review tools, in partnership with Steadfast LA, Autodesk, and Amazon, to enable homeowners and their designers to review and refine plans before submitting them to local agency reviewers, saving homeowners time and cost. Early results from LA City and County show that this tool improves efficiency, accuracy, transparency, and speed of the rebuilding process. You can sign-up for AI-powered plan review in LA County here, in the City of LA here, and in Malibu here.

Trump abandons LA fire survivors

In addition to taking action to speed rebuilding, the Governor is also standing up for the Altadena and Palisades communities by calling out Congress and the White House for failing to approve long-term disaster funding for survivors of last year’s catastrophic Los Angeles wildfires. 

While Trump dines with a Saudi prince and builds his “royal” ballroom at the White House, California continues to address the impacts of the unprecedented firestorms from earlier this year, with little help from the Trump administration. 

California submitted its formal request for a federal disaster supplemental appropriation of $39.68 billion in February, following fires that killed dozens, burned thousands of homes, and caused billions in damage.

So many months later, Congress has not acted to authorize the long-term recovery aid typically granted early in the next session after disasters of this magnitude.

This level of inaction is unprecedented. After Hurricane Ian, after the Camp Fire, after the Maui fires, after floods in the Midwest, Congress moved quickly, Republicans and Democrats together, to help survivors rebuild. But for the people of Los Angeles, for tens of thousands of Californians who lost everything, the federal government is missing in action. 

The delay has stalled rebuilding projects, prolonged hardship for displaced families, and left low-income residents, renters, and small businesses without federal support. Local governments cannot move forward on critical recovery efforts like cleanup, long-term housing, and infrastructure restoration without federal funding.

The Governor renewed his call for immediate approval of the disaster supplemental, urging Congress and the President to deliver the same compassion and urgency that have been extended to other communities across the nation.

As the LA community focuses on rebuilding homes, schools, utilities and critical infrastructure while also supporting small businesses and job growth in the impacted region, they cannot do it alone: the federal government plays a critical role as a partner to the state in this long-term recovery effort. Funding in this supplemental appropriation would: 

• Fund the rebuilding of schools, childcare centers, homes, and vital community facilities. This helps thousands of working families, veterans who lost homes, and thousands of students displaced from their schools. 

• Keep small businesses open, support the economy, and maintain jobs. LA’s small businesses and family-owned enterprises are the backbone of our local and national economy. Disaster loans and grants will keep them open, preserve thousands of jobs, and spur wider economic recovery — benefiting Americans who may never set foot in Los Angeles but rely on its goods, services, and culture.

• Restore damaged water systems, rebuild responder infrastructure, and improve air quality monitoring. This protects not only LA’s population but the tens of millions who travel, conduct business, and interact with the region each year.