Condo owners in Palisades may get rebuilding fee relief

L.A.'s reworked plan calls for waiving cost of permits for all types of fire-razed buildings.

- BY DAVID ZAHNISER

L.A. officials had sought to limit relief to single-family homes and duplexes. Above, Pacific Palisades' fire zone.

(Photographs by ALLEN J. SCHABEN Los Angeles Times)

Ever since the Jan. 7 wildfire incinerated much of Pacific Palisades, residents have pressed city leaders to do more to speed the recovery.

Fire victims have pushed Mayor Karen Bass to weigh in on mortgage relief. They have asked city leaders for help with their insurers. And they have sought clearer answers about the city’s timeline for putting utility lines underground.

Now, Palisades residents are on the verge of a major victory — wide-ranging relief from the permit fees charged by the Department of Building and Safety and several other agencies during the rebuilding process.

On Friday, the city’s top budget official issued a reworked proposal, recommending that the City Council waive the fees for every type of building destroyed in the fire.

In his nine-page report, City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo recommended fee relief for single-family homes, duplexes, condominium complexes, townhouses, apartment buildings and commercial businesses.

That is a departure from the approach Szabo and other city officials initially favored.

In October the council’s powerful Budget and Finance Committee sought to limit the relief to two types of buildings — single-family homes and duplexes — after expressing fears about the hit to the city budget if the program were more expansive.Dozens of Palisades residents showed up at City Hall last month to denounce that narrower approach. Among them was Roseanne Landay, whose two-bedroom condominium was destroyed in the fire.