So, here's what's happening in the Pacific Palisades right now:

A pro-development organization has sued Gov. Gavin Newsom over an executive order blocking duplexes in Los Angeles neighborhoods stricken by January’s wildfires.

Newsom issued his order in July in response to lobbying from property owners in the Pacific Palisades, the coastal L.A. community that was largely destroyed in the blazes. Palisades residents argued that allowing duplexes and spitting [sic] lots into two parcels would undermine the neighborhood’s character and worsen evacuation efforts in the event of future disasters. Following the governor’s order, all the jurisdictions affected — the cities of Los Angeles, Malibu and Pasadena and L.A. County — banned SB 9 rebuilds in high-risk fire areas. The suit includes each local government as a defendant as well.

This is interesting.

On the one hand, there is, of course, a logic to not allowing too much density and too many close-together houses in an area prone to wildfires and where there are only so many roads leaving the community. But on the other hand, it's not clear that this is really what it's all about.

The counterargument, from groups like the one suing, is that this is actually about perpetuating exclusivity, and perhaps even about "cleansing" the neighborhood of households who don't have the means to rebuild in a way that suits the "character" of the place. Duplexes = rental homes. And smaller lots = less expensive houses.

So, which is it?

My view is that this should be looked at from an overall population standpoint, and not from a housing type standpoint. According to 2023 census data for zip code 90272, the Pacific Palisades had a population of approximately 21,438 residents. This is a decline of just over 10% over the last 23 years. (Source: U.S. Census Bureau Decennial Census 2000 & ACS 2023)

On top of this, the number of households has also declined from ~9,319 in 2000 to 8,282 in 2023. So by all accounts, the area is shrinking and becoming less dense. There are fewer residents and fewer occupied homes. This is a directionally good thing if your primary concern is evacuation congestion and the safety of residents.

But then, what's the concern with duplexes and smaller lots? Is the concern that the area might regain its previous population and household count? Is the objective to continue shrinking and reach some more optimal set of numbers? Should there only be 15,000 residents, or maybe even 10,000?

Because if that's the case, then I think a more effective policy would be: "This neighborhood can only support X number of residents and Y number of households, because otherwise people can't evacuate quickly enough in the case of emergency. Once we reach these limits, we will stop processing building permits for all housing types."

When a policy only restricts specific housing types, as opposed to more directly addressing a stated problem, it suggests to me that the stated problem is not actually the primary concern.

Cover photo by Beau Horyza on Unsplash