Susan Shelley: Will densification come to the Palisades and Altadena? Daily News
Is it true that California government officials intentionally let the Palisades and Altadena burn so they could work with their developer friends to drive the homeowners out, buy up the land and turn the neighborhoods into high-density, transit-oriented communities with low-income housing, over the objections of current homeowners who are stalled from rebuilding what they had?
If it s not completely true, it s also not as false as it should be.
Intent would be hard to prove, but when policies are idiotic, history is disregarded and warnings are ignored, that s close enough for government work.
For example, the Coastal Commission stopped the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power from replacing old wooden power poles with fire-resistant steel poles near Pacific Palisades in 2019 because the work had damaged 200 endangered Braunton s milkvetch plants. The California Air Resources Board enacted smoke regulations in 2000 that sharply curtailed the longstanding practice of prescribed burns to reduce wildfire fuel. The 117-million-gallon reservoir constructed near Pacific Palisades after a 1961 fire in Bel-Air and Brentwood destroyed nearly 500 homes was recklessly left empty with no back-up plan.
What about an intention to drive homeowners out, buy up the land and turn single-family neighborhoods into mini-Manhattans? Is that true?
Once again, it s not quite as false as it should be. Property owners are being squeezed financially by insurance disputes, slow permitting and costly new building requirements, all while paying the expenses of living somewhere else. How many months or years will it take to rebuild what was lost? What percentage of homeowners can t or won t wait? And what will the next owner do with the property?
Well this is a real teeth grinder.