Misinformation surrounding 2 California housing bills stokes rebuilding fears for fire victims

Rebuilding is hard enough after January's devastating wildfires, but in addition to the usual hoops residents must jump through, many are also battling rebuilding fears.

Some of those fears are being stoked by two new bills working their way through the California State Capitol.

Pacific Palisades resident Sue Kohl is rebuilding after the fire, but she's still haunted by what happened on January 7 - and how difficult it was to evacuate on the windy, narrow roads to get to Sunset Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway.

"It was scary. It was very scary for a lot of us," said Kohl.

It took some residents hours to get to safety. Some even had to ditch their cars and evacuate on foot. So, it's not surprising that when it comes to rebuilding, residents don't want to increase the amount of people who live in the Palisades.

"The idea of increased density in our town is a big problem pretty much for everybody. Nobody wants to go through that once in their lifetime, let alone twice. It's pretty horrific. It's traumatizing," said Kohl.

That trauma has seeped in to two bills making their way through the state legislature in Sacramento.

One of the bills, SB 549, had to be paused after misinformation was spread on AI platforms. Reality TV star and Palisades resident Spencer Pratt, who was among those that lost their homes in the fire, posted on TikTok.

"I don't even think this is political. This is a common sense post," said Pratt.

SB 549 was authored by State Senator Ben Allen, who represents Pacific Palisades. The bill, which will be worked on and taken up again next year, has a goal of helping people rebuild better, creating an authority that would cut red tape.

"That other language that was in the bill refers to financing. It's a voluntary financing program for transit-oriented development, that type of thing. It refers a couple times to density. People saw that and they saw the authority and they said 'oh man, this is going to increase density in the Palisades.' That was never what was going on in this bill. Those were separate parts of the bill. There's nothing in the bill about zoning and up-zoning," said Allen.

Some Palisades residents have also taken a stand against a different bill which could make it to Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk by September.

SB 79, authored by State Senator Scott Weiner, would ensure the state allows more housing near the most frequented public transportation stops, addressing our housing crisis.

Very high fire severity zones aren't excluded, but Pacific Palisades and Altadena aren't currently covered by the bill because they don't have the large public transportation hubs the bill addresses.

"If what we're going to say is you can't build housing anywhere where there might conceivably be a wildfire sometime... OK, we can do that, but we're going to continue to push people out of the state because we're going to continue to have a housing shortage," said Weiner.

Although large public transportation projects part of SB 579 could one day make their way to places like Pacific Palisades and Altadena, those projects would have to follow the state's strict standards for rebuilding in high fire zones. That includes defensible space, fire-resistant building materials and sufficient evacuation routes.