On Friday, Hot Air posted an article about the rebuilding of the Pacific Palisades area in California that was destroyed by fire in January of this year. There is a strong possibility that rebuilding the areas as it was will never take place.

The article reports:

…But the process is still slow. As of midday July 1, 2025, the LA County Permitting Progress Dashboard showed 890 rebuild applications in the Eaton Fire area, but only 44 building permits have been issued, taking an average turnaround of about 10 weeks to get through the process.

And speed matters. A survey of fire victims found that the longer it takes to rebuild, the more likely it is people won’t move back.

“So even folks that fully intend to move back today, if this process, either through permitting or financing or insurance, takes more than three years, the percentage of people that want to move back drops to like 50%,” Kawahara says.

The article notes the government’s desire to change the character of the neighborhood:

Six months after the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires, California Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled $101 million in funding Tuesday for “multifamily low-income housing development” that will “contribute to a more equitable and resilient Los Angeles.” The priority is for “geographic proximity to the fire perimeters of the Eaton, Hughes, and Palisades fires.” 

Earlier this year, The Center Square broke news that California state law and a local Los Angeles ordinance require fire-destroyed rent-protected housing — which includes all apartments in the city built before October 1978 — be replaced with low-income housing. Because the affordability requirements use county-level income data, not more local incomes, definitions for “low” and “very low” income housing reflect much lower incomes than the norm for the affluent Palisades community. 

“Thousands of families – from Pacific Palisades to Altadena to Malibu – are still displaced, and we owe it to them to help,” said Newsom in a statement. “The funding we’re announcing today will accelerate the development of affordable multifamily rental housing so that those rebuilding their lives after this tragedy have access to a safe, affordable place to come home to.”  

And some people wonder why Californians are moving out of the state. I believe that the property rights of the homeowners in Pacific Palisades are not being honored. That does not bode well for the economic success of the state. In 2010, I wrote an article discussing the correlation between property rights and prosperity (article here). Ignoring that relationship is not a good policy for any state or federal government.