The first new home has been built in the Pacific Palisades, marking an important milestone almost a year after the area was destroyed by wildfires.
There were widespread fears among locals that California’s burdensome building process would hinder the Palisades’ revival and force long-time residents to permanently move.
However, in what the Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass described as an “important moment of hope”, a house has been rebuilt from the ashes and is the first to receive a certificate of occupancy.
The property is not for sale, rather it is a show home for the builder. Residents were invited into the property for the first time over the weekend. They found a four-bedroom home across almost 4,000 sq ft. It replaced a 1,600 sq ft property that was destroyed in January.
The house is surrounded by vacant lots that were also incinerated but represents what the neighborhood could look like once the rebuild is complete. “You look at this and you go, ‘Oh, it’s a beautiful house,’ but you don’t have any neighbors,” Susan Watanabe, a retired graphic designer whose home burnt down in January, told The Wall Street Journal.
The new home has passed an inspection from the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, meaning it is safe to inhabit.
Built by the developer Thomas James Homes, the house is fire-resistant. The eaves are covered to stop embers lodging there and spreading flames, and a fire-defence system can cover the home in water and flame retardant in case of a nearby blaze.
The developer bought the property for $3.4 million in November last year and was planning to tear it down. James Mead, the chief executive of Thomas James Homes, believes the new house would be worth about $6 million in the pre-fire market.
According to the property website Redfin, the median sale price in the Palisades in October was up 14 per cent on the same month last year.
Los Angeles and California generally have a dire housing shortage and building projects can be hindered by bureaucracy. The state’s leaders said they would streamline the process for rebuilding after the fires.
Bass’s office said more than 1,300 rebuilding plans had been approved for 650 addresses in the Palisades, and hundreds more plans are under the review process.
