You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Michael Monks from KFI News. We got another hour together, reporting live from our studio here in Burbank. We want to hear from you. Open up the iHeartRadio app. Click on that talkback button. If you want to talk about
the reparations report that came out this afternoon. We talked about it last hour, Or if you have any feelings about the potential for federal illegal immigration raids here in La as apparently forecasted in an article by the La Times, or what we're going to be talking about next, which is rebuilding the Palisades and Alta Dina and how challenging that's going to be just because of how difficult it
is to build anything around here. First, I want to let you know, of course, Governor Gavin Newsom has enacted the new legislation to quote trump proof California. He says this bill will bolster funding for legal service programs or what he says are vital to safeguarding the civil rights of Californians. He wrote a letter to lawmakers and Sacramento saying that none of the funding in the bill is intended to be used for immigration related legal services for
non citizens convicted of serious or violent felonies. The series of bills allocates twenty five million dollars to the California Department of Justice to support legal battles against President Trump and his policies. And then there's another twenty five million dollars designated to legal aid groups to assist immigrants who are facing potential deportation that has been signed into law
as California tries to Trump proof itself. I bring that up here at the top of this segment because we're kind of in a position where we're in need of support from the federal government here in southern California because of the disastrous wildfires that ravaged multiple parts of Los Angeles County weeks ago. You know, you can still touch the burns, and so is this the right time for a little match between local state governments and the feds.
Want's see how this plays out, because we know President Trump. You know, he's not a big fan of Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom's not a big fan of President Trump. But then here locally, who's the boss and what is their relationship going to be with President Trump in the federal government, Because they are going to need a lot of money to rebuild the Palisades and rebuild Altadna. But even if the money comes in, they were going to be immense
challenges because there already are. Even before the fires rolled in, it was almost impossible to build anything. I was at a city council meeting this week, and one member of council explained it takes an average of eight hundred days to build a single family home in the city of La eight hundred days from permitting to building. Eight hundred days. Now that might be to build a single family home for somebody who already has a place to live, you know,
somebody who's moving across town. We're talking about building homes where there are no homes anymore, people who do not have homes anymore. And so you're hearing from city officials and county officials about how much faster things.
Are going to go. But do you believe that?
And then some of these efforts would have the efforts I mean to speed things up could have bad consequences according to people who want to see better housing policy in the long run, or maybe some reform to the way we zone neighborhoods, and do you trust the local government to get that right. It's going to be a very interesting time to see how not just Alta Dinas rebuilt, not just the Palisades is rebuilt, but how local government changes in the city of La and the County of La.
I've paid very close attention by attending nearly all of the local government meetings for the past year, and it has often surprised me about what they get excited about, where the priorities are. When you can see the challenges by just opening your eyes, you think, why an't they talking about this?
Why are they talk about how dark it is at night?
Why aren't they talking about how many homeless people that are standing outside of this business that can probably barely afford to pay its rent. But now there is a sense of urgency, at least they say, anyway to rebuild these two devastated neighborhoods where people's lives have been ruined. Mayor Bass has appointed a recovery cesar, Steve sober Off, a familiar name. He's being paid half a million dollars over the next three months, not a bad salary. Huh,
that's not your tax dollars. Apparently charitable groups, the philanthropic community. As Mayor Bass puts, it will be covering the five hundred thousand dollars salary for Steve sober Off over the next three months. He's also got a consulting firm to come in and we're expecting that firm to put in a report.
You know, it's just.
Mayor Bass is where the bus bucks stop, she said so herself. But we've also got our recoveries are now at the county. Of course, we have the board of Supervisors. We have a supervisor who represents the Palisades, which is in the city of la and then we have a supervisor who represents Altadena, Katherine Barger. She's put together a commission as well to help the rebuilding of Alta Dina.
She's going to chair that herself. So already it's kind of fractured, right, there's not a unified march towards rebuilding. Some people's focus might only be on Palisades. Some people's focus may only be on Alta Dina. Of course, these were very different communities in a lot of ways, but the seriousness of the destruction is exactly the same. The situation faced by the families and the businesses. That's all the same right now, So are we all marching in the same direction?
Should we be?
Give us a call way in iHeartRadio app. Click on the talkback button. We'll play some of your messages before nine o'clock and up next, we're going to talk about just how challenging it is to build anything in La or La County, and how some of these decisions could
have long term consequences that folks aren't discussing enough. We'll talk to a guy who says the La County Board of Supervisor's recent resolution about asking the state to suspend various legal protections for property owners in burned areas should be a national scandal.
We'll get to him next.
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Michael Monks from KFI News with you until nine o'clock tonight. The recovery has begun here in La La County in the wake of the Palisades and Eton fire. Is in fact, the City of LA's new ad hoc committee from the City Council focused on Recovery in the Palisades has had its first official meeting, and I want to share a clip from a woman who spoke at this meeting because it indicates just how stressed these folks
are and how emotional they are. Role if you don't mind playing that, we do.
Not have time to negotiate with our insurance companies. I do not need to throw Steve sober Off under the bus. But at one of the meetings recently, he said we all should hire attorneys. You want seven thousand damage structures, hiring individual attorneys and bringing negligence claims which are very valid. You don't want that. This is an unprecedented time. Help us negotiate with the insurance companies to pay out at our policy levels. We are drowning in the minutia and
the details. We don't have time to mourn the loss of our community, of our family, of our friends. I mean, these are this is our family, these are our people. I don't think people understand.
So that was the first meeting, and the reference to Steve sober Off, of course, is that's the guy that Mayor bass Is appointed. As the recoveries are making half a million dollars over the next three months, all from philanthropic charitable donations to cover that immense salary. He's overseeing the rebuilding of the Palisades. We're joined live now by M. Nolan Gray, the Senior Director of Legislation and Research at
California YIMBI common acronym for Yes in My Backyard. He's also the author of Arbitrary Lines, How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. Nolan, I'm so glad you could be back with us again.
We thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure.
Okay.
So we heard the urgency in that woman's voice, and I feel like I'm getting mixed signals from government officials, from political commentators or civic leaders as well as residents.
How fast should we go? How slow should we go?
Whether it's reopening roads and letting people inspect or getting down the building stuff. Are we moving too fast? Are we moving too slow? Or is there a goldilocks pace we could find that is just right to get this going?
You know, I think the city and the county of the whole is really in an impossible situation here. On the one hand, of course, they want to be in a situation where they can say to people who've lost their homes, hey, we're going to get you building as quickly as possible. On the other hand, there's going to be delays that the city and county do not control associated with insurance. And then they're also potentially broader structural
changes that need to happen as part of this. You know that we know these communities were vulnerable in part to the fires because of broader issues with how Los Angeles is planned, and so those are sort of changes that are going to require long term adjustment. So, you know, I think it's a really, really impossible situation, and we're going to have to make some painful trade offs in the coming months.
I'm going to talk to you about those how Los Angeles is planned, because you had an article, I mean, well, the flames were still burning. You had an article published by The Atlantic about how it was more than just wins, how it was more than just the brush. Its policies here in Los Angeles and help fuel those fires, And I do want to get into that with you. But first, we are dealing with the county government and we are
dealing with the city government. Neither of them are celebrated for how quickly they are able to move things along for the average citizen. I heard a city council member just this week say it takes an average of eight hundred days to build a single family home in Los Angeles. And so the city has now voted for a report because nothing ever happens vast, but they've asked for a report in thirty days to see if they can allow people like architects to self certify in order to speed
up the permitting process a little bit. Do you anticipate that there will be permanent changes to the way the city and the county government deal with building things because of these fires.
I think that's so essential. You know, Los Angeles went into this crisis being very very very slow on permitting, and that was already hurting us. You know, we came into this month, We came into January with a housing shortage of about a half a million units, right, and we come out of January with sixteen thousand homes destroyed.
As you say, it already took months, sometimes years, just to get through the planning and the permitting process to build a home, to say nothing of actually getting the home built, eventually, getting an inspector out getting somebody into that home. We're just not going to be able to work on the same timelines that we were working on before the wildfires, and that's going to require some serious
change in how we do permitting. I think self certification, letting licensed architect and engineers folks who are licensed by the state to do this work, letting themself certify, allowing applicants to hire licensed third party architects and engineers to review plans. I think that stuff is all incredibly reasonable.
A lot of other states already do that. A lot of other countries already do that in many cases, you know, having the licensed professional, having the bonding and insurance requirements protect the consumer, and frankly, they're much better protected than having to wait for two years just to get a permit from the city or the county.
The Board of Supervisors passed a series of resolutions a few weeks ago, and one of them asked the state to suspend some legal protections for property owners in the burned areas, which would include their right to build a duplex or an ADU, which I believe is accessory dwelling unit, and also to allow for reasonable permit timelines and more. You said on Twitter, I saw you say this this was a national scandal or should be a national scandal.
What the board of supervisors has voted. They're doing this with what seems like the best of intentions, right to get building and to get people back into housing. There, what are we missing about what they're seeing and what you're observing.
You know, under the current status quo policies and procedures. I understand they're looking at the situation. They're saying, there's no way we have the capacity to get these people building in the near term. And so what we're engaged in right now is the sort of arbitrage of or triage of Okay, well, let's say, okay, if you just rebuild the exact same home that existed before, we'll put you to the front of the line for permitting and
don't on the one hanging Out's kind of reasonable. But there's two things that I think are really important to keep in mind here. One is a lot of these folks who want to rebuild. You know, you're saying to them, oh, you can only rebuild a home that's one hundred and ten percent the size of what existed before. So you can't build a larger home. You can't maybe add an extra bedroom or to your home and maybe take on
neighbors or friends or family who are also displaced. You can't build an accessory dwelling unit Pursuato state law again housing your neighbors who are displaced. So that's one aspect of it. I think another aspect of it, a lot of these folks were uninsured, especially in Altadena, they were uninsured or underinsured, and they're not going to get a payout at any point unless the government ponies up money
that we don't have right now. Realistically, the only way they're going to be made whole is if they can sell the land or work with a local developer who put a few units on that land and sell some of those units and get themselves a new home and
get back some of the wealth that was lost. And the more we constrain the opportunities for those people, the more unlikely it is that they're going to a be able to return to their communities and be ever sort of recoup any of the wealth that was destroyed by the fire. And I think that's a really dangerous situation that we're walking into.
We are looking at satellite images or if you are able to get into that neighborhood to see it for yourself from the street level. It's just devastating that basically all that's left is the land, and so how do we get folks to be able to maximize that land the best. Those are the questions that you seem to be raising, not just for their own personal wellbeing, but really to create the most housing that could be available to people that they also care about. I want to
dive into that a little bit more. Coming out, we got to get to a quick news break. Stick with us.
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Michael Monks from KFI News. We're with you till nine o'clock tonight. We're talking about the painful process of rebuilding in the Palisades and in Alta Dina. Our guest right now is m Nolan Gray, the Senior Director of Legislation and Research at California YIMBI that means in my backyard, and the author of Arbitrary Lines. How zoning Broke the American City and How to fix it. Nolan before we
went to break. I think I'm trying to understand some possible scenarios for folks who own the land that is left behind in this absolute carnage of these neighborhoods. Now, is there some sort of mechanism by which people could look at the land where their beautiful home once stood and say, I think I do want to do something
different here. We mentioned before we went to break that it's faster to just go back down to the government office and say, yeah, we're rebuilding the exact same house as close to it as we can anyway to speed it up. But can they split those lots, build a couple of homes, a couple of accelerate accessory dwelling units and possibly have a better situation for themselves financially, so any returns they get from the insurance companies.
Absolutely. Over the last few years, the state legislature has passed a lot of laws that really strengthened the rights of owners to build a variety of different types of housing on their lots. So, of course, many folks in Alta Dunam Palisades might just want to go back and rebuild exactly what was there, or build something slightly larger. If they're rebuilding exactly what was there, it seems like the city and the county are putting them at the
front of the line. If they want to build almost anything else, it seems like it's going to be a little bit tougher. But under state law, potentially they could add an accessory dwelling unit some people call it a
granny flat or a casita, an additional unit. They could build a duplex, or split the lot and build two homes under a law called SB nine, or depending on the size of the lot, they could build a small townhouse or small lot subdivision cluster and potentially maybe live in one of the units and sell the other units off.
So they have a lot of options. I think something that has been worrying is that the county requested that the state exempt the affected areas from a whole bunch of these laws on the idea of just trying to rebuild exactly what was there. Again. But the really important thing to keep in mind here is the best thing we can do for the affected family and households right now is to give them the most possible options.
You've noted that some of the people who lost their homes. Maybe they've lived there a long time, maybe their mortgages had been paid off, and they didn't have insurance. So the only thing that's left is the value of that land. So what does suspending the state laws or requesting to suspend them anyway due to folks like that, Well, for.
Folks who might completely reasonably say, hey, look, this was a traumatic event we just went through. We're going to sell the lot or give it to a family member or something of that nature and then move away. For those folks, right, but the most important thing is making sure that the land can be used for a variety
of different things. And so of course, if you can sell the land on the premise that you can build a duplex on it with an accessory dwelling unit, or you could build four townhouses on it, that land is a lot more valuable than if you say to that family, hey, the only thing you can build on this lot is the exact same thing family home that was there before the fires. And so what you're essentially doing is you're just you're reducing the land wealth that a lot of these affected families have.
You wrote in the Atlantic while the fires were still raging, I mean this was published on January eleventh. Those flames were still hot in the policades in an Alta, Dina that there were policies in LA that helped fuel those fires. Well intentioned policies is what the headline says. And you wrote that the real story of the wildfires isn't about malice or incompetence, It's about well intentioned policies with unintended consequences.
What can you tell us about that?
Absolutely, you know, And as I was writing that, right, I mean, like a lot of Los Angeles there was alerts going out of hey, you need to be ready to get out. Briefly, the part of West LA I was in had a potential evacuation order or evacuation notice, so very real for me, and I think a lot
of Angelina's, you know. I think part of what I was hoping to just clarify is, Hey, this is it was a long road to get to a point like this, and if we don't take this moment to seriously reflect that how we got here, we're going to continue to make the same mistakes. I think something that we've done over the last fifty years in California and especially here in Los Angeles is we've pushed and pulled people into unsafe areas and not made the investments needed to mitigate
that risk. On the one hand, right we had I think politically very wise decisions to restrict insurance premiums and areas that were at long term risk of fires. Understandably, nobody likes paying a higher premium, but those premiums are communicating risk and potentially providing motivation to take fire abatement actions, And we kind of hid the risk from generations of California homeowners who might not have fully realized that these areas really were at risk of fire. So that's one
thing we did. We artificially suppressed these sort of insurance premiums and and other sorts of measures that would have communicated risk and let people make smart decisions about the carry offs. The second thing we were doing is kind of pushing folks out into this out into these air is.
This wasn't so much true in the Palisades or Altadena, but you know, the parts of Greater Los Angeles where we're building housing are the types of places that are exactly at risk of these types of events going forward. Out on the outer wildlife urban interface, wildland urban interface.
And what we've essentially done is we've made it really, really, really hard to build housing and some of the safest areas of Greater Los Angeles, and we made it very easy to build housing in some of the most dangerous areas. And so, you know, if we want to sort of get ourselves back on a path to getting more Californians living in safer areas, we're going to have to reckon with these two policies.
I'm sensing that there might be a shift in the government just broadly speaking.
Right now.
It's obviously still early. These wounds in Altadena, these wounds in the Palisades are still very fresh. But we saw a pretty intense argument at LA City Hall this week about freezing rents basically citywide in the wake of these fires.
And it's a policy that might have garnered pretty quick support just generically from folks, but I've noted that there are elected members of city council who are saying to other members of council, don't use this tragedy to push your political agendas, when maybe a year ago that would have been all of their political agenda. And I'm wondering if we're going to see that at the county level
as well. As I'm watching these events unfold. I present that to you because I'm wondering if that shift extends into the bureaucracy as well. You've noted that the next year is going to be extremely quote consequential for the future of housing affordability in California. I'm sensing a big change in elected governance. I'm wondering if there's going to be a change in bureaucratic governance. What do you mean about extremely consequential for the next year, because I'm feeling the same vibe.
Well, we already had a debilitating housing shortage coming into twenty twenty five, and now we have tens of thousands of Angelino's who are out of a home, or many more tens of thousands of a Julino's who maybe were near the areas that were affected by that, and they're thinking, Hey, I want to move, I want to get somewhere that where this is not going to happen in the next ten years. You know, this is this is really important.
Right again, Even coming into all of this crisis, we had a lot of Angelina spending more than the half of their income on rent. Young Angelinas have no path to home ownership. We've got tens of thousands of people living on the streets. There's going to be this surge and housing demand and safe areas, and unless we have a commensurate response, things are just going to get much much worse. And so I'm hoping to see more leadership at the top communicating to all parts, Hey, let's get
these projects through. Let's get stuff bill in the near term. It's tricky, right do you freeze rents now during an emergency? I think, you know, I think there are arguments for both sides of that, but we have to be doing the sort of long term things, actually get the housing built. All of the problems that we had coming into the fires are just compounded. This was a generational disaster. It's the sort of thing that should be motivating big, deep conversations.
And I know that, you know, folks are saying, hey, let's let's pause, let's let's you know, let's not talk about policy ideas while you know the meet and aftermath of this. This is precisely the leadership that the people who are affected actually need, and we need to be having a big picture conversation about how we not only help them rebuild and get housed and remain in LA
if they want to remain in LA. But how do we avoid this from happening to hundreds of thousands of people in the next few years.
Nolan Gray is the Senior Director of Legislation and Research at California Gimbie and the author of Arbitrary Lines. How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. M Nolan Gray Man, I can't think of anything better on a beautiful Saturday night in southern California than talking about zoning and housing policy. I'm so grateful that he came in and did it again with us, and hope we can reach out to you again soon.
Thanks so much, my pleasure, talk to you soon.
All right, up next, you know we're not out of the woods yet. When it comes to weather, we got another storm on the way. We're going to talk about that next.
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
KFI AM six forty. We are live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Michael mun from k FI News here to finish up our two hours on Saturday night together. So grateful that you listened to us talk about the news that has gone down in the week leading up to this, and it's always my pleasure to bring you the news during the week along with the rest of our news team in talkcosts here at k f I. We also love hearing from you. Let's hear from Pete.
He had something to say about Mayor Bass and the fire recovery.
Yeah, Karen Bass claims she's gonna run investigation about the fire department about it was understaffed and didn't have the mechanics to deploy them as well as staffing. Well, she cut the funding and that's what the investigation go to show. Get your handcuffs ready.
We always appreciate the feedback and yes, Mayor Bass was asked this week about why so many fire trucks and other emergency vehicles were sitting idle awaiting mechanical service, apparently as the fire in the Palisade started. She says that
will be looked into by the Fire Commission first. She also says that the state will have some investigations as well, So there's going to be a lot to answer for leading up to the fires, what happened during the fires, and what is going to happen now that they are behind us, and we'll continue to cover that.
Here at KFI. Don't forget.
You can follow me on social media and the news that I'm covering for KFI. Mike monks La at Mike monks La. That's miicmnks La at Mike Monk's La. Something else that is coming to the Southland is another battle with rain, apparently, and this so called atmospheric river is a major one. We've been told to prepare for the worst.
Can't catch your break now, can wait? They're calling us a major atmospheric river storm, strong enough to rival some of the extreme storms that are wallap southern California in recent winters. According to the La Times, they say Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo could get the brunt of this thing, but it's also gonna hit La and Ventura Counties. Apparently, by the time it hits Orange County it will have weakened a little bit, but they're talking about some pretty
serious rain. According to The Times, this storm, forecast to reach southern California sometime before Valentine's Day, is expected to be the strongest of the winter so far. That's according to the National Weather Service in Oxnard. We could see two to four inches of rain along the coast and in the valleys, four to eight inches or more in
the mountains and the foothills. They say. The higher chance of that kind of rainfall is in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, but a thirty percent chance in La and Ventura counties. The Weather Service also says this rainfall could be extreme along the lines of a powerful powerful storm from January of two years ago which forced mass evacuations of Montecito and other communities, So be prepared for some extreme weather that is on the way again
next week. It looks like a lot of rainfall, could be a wet Valentine's Day as well, And of course we've got these burn areas that are vulnerable to mudslines and debris falls, so a lot of things to be on the lookout for. We definitely don't need any more disasters here. We haven't had a lot of rain, though we got a little bit this week, but it's been
a pretty dry winter so far. Downtown La receiving just about two inches of rain since the water year began on October first, and almost all of that has been since late last month. Typically at this point in the year, we got almost eight inches in downtown ally, so not a lot, not a lot. Yes, there is a big football game tomorrow as well. I know you're excited about it, even if your team is not in it. But Raoul Cortes, our board operator, our technical producer, his team isn't it?
Kansas City Chiefs fan, he's got a shirt on. Are you bored with this?
I mean, is it?
You know?
Donald Trump likes to tell you're gonna be so tired of winning? Are you tired of winning? I'm tired of you winning. I know you are.
I know everybody is.
Uh No, I'm not tired. Of course.
We are witnessing greatness either way, honestly, because I am a Jalen Hurts fan as well. So it's kind of like when he was with Bama. I really thought he was going to be like a big phenomenon. And look he's at the super Bowl twice. So both guys are amazing. We're witnessing greatness. Let's watch do the Chiefs win again tomorrow? I will say, yes, of course they will. What do you do for Super Bowl Sunday? I mean, is it
a big deal for you? Is it a big to do or are you a guy who needs to watch it alone?
I watch it alone.
Yeah, And I was gonna watch it with my family, but they changed the plans on me today and expected me to go with that, and I'm not going with that.
I'm gonna watch it alone.
Now.
Is your whole family chiefs fans somehow?
Uh?
No, only only the people that are from Missouri.
Okay, that's your connection to is you've got a Missouri clan?
Yeah. My stepdad and his family, they were his family. He was a Rams guy, but his family is from Springfield and they taught me football when I was like eighteen, I didn't care. I was a music guy and I didn't care about football. And they were like, what, let's we'll tell you about this guy named Derek Thomas, and let's tell you about this guy and Willie like this.
It just explained everything to me.
And that's how I learned about football because the other side of the family was Raider fans, and they never explained anything. They were just like, we're Raider fans. And I'm like, why why are we Raider fans?
So?
Oh well, we just are.
No, I don't think so. So when I was taught football. I was taught by Chiefs fans, and that's why I'm a Chief fan.
All right, Well, we I hope you're smiling tomorrow.
I guess. I mean, I got no dog in that fight. I'll tell you what I'll be doing. I always do grocery shopping on Sundays anyway, And I'm not like anti football. I enjoyed the Super Bowl as much as any red blooded American. But I love going out while everyone's watching the super Bowl because there is nothing else. There's no one around. I have the whole grocery store of myself. I can sniff everything, I can taste it all. No one's looking.
Now. Wait, wait, wait, though you know a little bit for Kelsey, he's from your home area, right.
I mean you know he's got University of Cincinnati connections. You know when you're from the Kentucky side of the CINCINNTI metro. Though that doesn't mean anything to you. You know your team's are either you know, NKU Northern Kentucky or UK University of Kentucky, and you know just don't care about that. But you know, I wish them all the best. I hope everyone has a good time. I hope both teams have a good time, and I know that I hope everybody listening has a good time as well.
Be safe out there, don't eat too much, definitely don't drink too much, especially if you are driving.
And I look forward to the commercials myself. Thanks for tuning in again.
Always enjoy being with you on Saturday nights from seven to nine.
Again.
I am Michael Monks from KFI News. We'll be back again next week. We'll have a special two hours on the fires, the cleanup effort, the experience of folks who survived it, and what comes next. So for our producer Matthew Toffler and our technical producer Rauel Cortes. Again, I'm Michael Monks. Follow us online at Mike Monks LA, m I CMO nks LA, and we'll see you back here all week doing the news and back here next week doing the show.
Thanks for listening.
KFI AM six forty on demand