Rebuilding After LA's Wildfires: Choose Resilience Over Speed
[Editor's note: Wildfires in Los Angeles. Hurricanes across Florida and the Southeast. Floods, extreme heat, and severe weather events are no longer rare occurrences—they’re becoming the new normal. The homebuilding and residential development industries face an urgent reckoning: how to build homes, neighborhoods, and communities that can withstand the increasing severity of climate-related natural disasters. The Builder’s Daily is launching Building Resilience, an ongoing series that examines the choices, challenges, and solutions shaping the future of resilient housing. Through interviews with experts, frontline builders, policymakers, and affected homeowners, the series will spotlight what’s working, what’s not, and what’s at stake when rebuilding after disaster strikes.
To kick off the series, contributing editor Rick Lawson reports from California, where Los Angeles-area communities are grappling with how to rebuild after wildfires destroyed more than 16,000 structures. Residents and leaders want to move quickly—but at what cost to future safety?]
As we begin our Building Resilience series, The Builder’s Daily will highlight what pros in the homebuilding industry think should or shouldn’t be happening in California and Los Angeles now that the devastating fires have been extinguished.
Now that cleanup has begun, discussions have become more serious about how to move forward with the rebuilding process. The term "resiliency” has been mentioned countless times.
California and Los Angeles leaders and homeowners who lost their homes want to move quickly, which may mean building back the same with the materials that created the tinder box that fueled the fires. Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order to fast-track rebuilding of the more than 16,000 structures lost in the fires by cutting red tape and speeding up permitting. But is that a good approach?
Building Back the Same Won’t Work
Richard Green, chair of the Lusk Center for Real Estate at the University of Southern California, opened a recent USC podcast with a personal story about his own home in Pasadena. It was built in 1911 and has elm trees around it.
I think to myself, we can’t build houses like this anymore because I’ve learned – I’ve gotten very interested in this subject – that everything about the house is as flammable as possible,” Green said, noting that different building materials are needed.
Ken Calligar, CEO of RSG 3-D, a company that makes insulated concrete panels for use in residential construction, agrees.
“Wood simply doesn’t work,” Calligar said. “You cannot make a wood box resilient.”
He said one of the challenges with California’s current approach is that it “becomes a competition for fast rather than a contemplation for good. I would build to a 500-year standard.”
He noted what happened after the 2017 Northern California fires, known as the Tubbs Fire. More than 5,600 structures were destroyed and rebuilt in the same way because the permitting was accelerated by allowing homeowners to reuse plans from their previous houses. He said the homes in Napa and Sonoma Counties had largely been built in the 1980s.
“They rebuilt a 1980s community. You changed nothing. It’s like they were building the set of the Brady Bunch years after they retired.”
Los Angeles could end up replicating that scenario and continuing the fire risk, a concern among experts.
Calligar’s company built a home in Santa Rosa that survived the Valley Fire, a 2015 fire in Northern California, using the concrete panel system. It's featured prominently in marketing material. The only damage: The wood deck on the back of the house burned off and the garage doors melted.
Concrete doesn't burn. RSG 3-D's panels are made with concrete sprayed over steel mesh surrounding insulation.
The company has built 40 homes in California and is now working with owners affected by the Los Angeles fires.
Rising Rebuilding Costs
California already has a reputation as a difficult and expensive place to build.
Calligar said materials costs will soar in California because of the level of construction needed, echoing a common theme. There is also a major shortage of expertise and not enough general contractors.
If wood is the chosen way, lumber costs have been rising already. In its February report, the National Association of Home Builders showed that framing lumber prices were 13.2% higher than a year ago.
In addition to homes being rebuilt, Calligar said the number of accessory dwelling units could skyrocket over the next few years. Last year, California made permanent the ability of homeowners to build rental ADUs and new ones can be built on a property with existing rentals. That will put additional pressure on rebuilding costs.