A massive rebuild is needed in Los Angeles after devastating wildfires wiped entire neighborhoods off the map, and local architect John Cordic says the city can be reconstructed in a couple years ... as long as city officials get on board.
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00:00I've been on the phone all weekend with my colleagues, architects, and builders, and
00:07we're all talking about just the same thing.
00:09It's all going to start with architects and engineers, but what we're really concerned
00:15about, we all feel that we're up to the task, but what we're really concerned about are
00:19our municipalities, and that's where we're really going to need to switch gears somehow.
00:25We all agree that we could get our communities back together in two, maybe three years, if
00:32we're allowed to.
00:33In the old days, when I started out, we were getting permits for houses in six to eight
00:37weeks, and now it can take two to three years to build a house, and it takes me a year and
00:43a half, two years to build, so it takes longer to get permits, and I'm speaking Los Angeles,
00:49Malibu.
00:50It takes longer to get permits than it does to build the house, so we've got to switch
00:54gears on that, and it's not complicated.
00:56We can do it.
00:57If you're close to the ocean, you not only have to go through the city and or the county,
01:02but you also have to go to the state coastal commission, and it's duplicative that a lot
01:08of times, coastal commission is looking at exactly what the city and the county is looking
01:13at.
01:14It just takes twice or three times as long, right?
01:16That's exactly right, and I don't want to demonize the coastal commission.
01:19They've done a great job of protecting the California coastline, but they're completely
01:23understaffed, and the large problem is that we've invented so many codes and so many laws
01:30that we, and that we're, the municipalities are understaffed.
01:35They cannot possibly enforce them, and that's why it takes two years to make a decision.
01:38It takes 10 minutes.
01:40It's just basically everybody's waiting in line.
01:42What went sideways where you were able to very quickly get permits to build, and then
01:49all of a sudden it takes two years?
01:52Why did it go sideways this way?
01:53What was the point of creating regulation after regulation that made it the way it is
02:00now?
02:01My guess is this really goes back to folks suing each other, and then the municipalities
02:05getting stuck in the middle, and everybody's afraid to stamp something.
02:09You cannot get one single person to take responsibility for anything because they're so afraid that
02:15somebody's going to come back and blame them for something, and that's another thing that
02:20we should look at is if we could get a single person to take responsibility for our permitting
02:25process from the beginning, from the day we walk in the door with our plans to the time
02:30that we walk out, it would be huge.
02:32If I could just add one thing in terms of the permitting, if the city could start to
02:36allow us to get phased permits like they do in commercial, give us foundation-only permits,
02:42we could hit the ground running right away.
02:44So in other words, give us the go to build the foundation, and then you catch up with
02:52us before we finish so we can get these houses up.
02:55Right.
02:56Exactly.
02:57And none of this is complicated.
02:58We don't need another commission with a bunch of guys sitting in a room and writing reports
03:02to talk about all this stuff.
03:03It's just all us guys in the trenches all know this stuff.
03:07It's very simple.
03:08We just need to be allowed to do it.