To the editor: Gov. Gavin Newsom has gotten front-page headlines with irrelevant gestures on easing regulations to rebuild in fire-stricken areas.
The California Environmental High quality Act, or CEQA, typically doesn’t apply to single-family houses, not to mention rebuilds. Moreover, as your article confirms, rebuilds of most single-family houses are additionally exempt from coastal growth permits.
As we realized in Santa Barbara after the Paint fireplace in 1990, when the county shortly moved to exempt rebuilds from the planning course of, most individuals of means didn’t wish to rebuild what that they had earlier than however have been keen to attend for one thing “larger” and higher. One can count on that the homeowners of seaside homes in Malibu will “need” what residents of extra modest, various areas in Altadena in actual fact do want.
Worse, the applying of those “exemptions” in Malibu will seemingly trash the state’s efforts to deal with sea-level rise in new building.
Two years in the past, Newsom vetoed Meeting Invoice 1078, which might have established a revolving mortgage fund to permit native jurisdictions to buy weak coastal properties affected by local weather change. Insurance coverage firms will now pay out billions on those self same coastal properties and go away the remainder of us, coastal residents or not, with out protection.
Now can be time for the state to take steps to buy or condemn what’s left of the vacant land beneath the ruins at its present “worth” as a growing public seaside.
Jana Zimmer, Santa Barbara
The author, a member of the California Coastal Fee from 2011-15, is writer of the ebook, “Navigating the California Coastal Act.”
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To the editor: I’ve a favor to ask our governor: Please assist me persuade my pals to not flee our state. Already fed up with homelessness and residential costs, they view these fires as the ultimate nail within the California coffin.
I attempt to inform them we’ve a chance to astound the remainder of the nation with how swiftly and ingeniously we will rise from the ashes. World-class creativity and technological innovation flourish right here as nowhere else and might help us reimagine and rebuild flame- and quake-resistant communities.
Good luck with that, they snicker. After which they level to our notoriously clumsy, overly regulated bureaucratic apparatuses to conclude that we’ll fail.
I implore the governor to declare the present second a clarion name to completely revolutionize and expedite the best way we get issues accomplished. He should rise above politics and use this second to actually recapture the power and spirit that made California what it’s — or was.
Jordan Sollitto, San Marino
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To the editor: I don’t help shortcutting the regulatory course of for rebuilding.
We really need a brand new set of laws for constructing on this area. We’d like new constructing codes. We have to panorama another way.
Letting folks construct in line with our present codes is only a recipe for repeated catastrophe.
This may decelerate the rebuilding, however it is going to make it significantly better in the long term. Our city planners have to give you constructing codes acceptable for our altering local weather.
Mona Discipline, Eagle Rock
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To the editor: I listened to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass speak about reducing purple tape for the rebuilding effort. Individuals who have misplaced houses and companies are inundated with issues, so this, if it occurs, will make it a bit simpler to rebuild.
However that raises a query: Why are there so many regulatory hurdles to constructing within the first place? If there may be regulatory reduction on the native stage for individuals who have misplaced a lot within the fires, why can’t pointless, cumbersome allowing merely be scuttled for good?
Alice Lillie, Pomona