Was Senate Bill 549 Part of Newsom and Bass’s Plan for LA All Along?
Why not purchase fire‑destroyed lots at distressed prices with taxpayer dollars and convert them into low‑income housing?
The California State Senate passed SB 549 on Tuesday, moving the Golden State one step closer to using taxpayer dollars to transform fire-ravaged lots into low-income housing.
In what was likely the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, the January 2025 wildfires that tore through vast swaths of the Greater Los Angeles area burned over 50,000 acres and destroyed more than 16,000 homes and other structures.
Though California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass pledged to ease rebuilding efforts by waiving permitting fees and review requirements and removing red-tape, it took about three weeks for residents to learn that wasn’t true.
Didn't Newsom and Bass say they were getting rid of all the red tape? @adamcarolla is being proven right. https://t.co/oIs5hOzLrm
— Mike LaChance (@MikeLaChance33) February 4, 2025
Six months on, the entire process appears to have stalled. Only a handful of building permits have been issued to those whose homes were lost.
As Hot Air’s Beege Welborn noted in a recent post, “In hard-hit Altadena alone, the rebuilding process six months later is sucking the lives and hope out of people. And every dime they ever had.”
For starters, not everyone will be exempted from paying permitting fees and “permitting is only one hurdle.”
The deferral of fees only applies to people who lived in their own single-family homes before the fire. It does not apply to non-owner-occupied rental properties, multi-family housing units or commercial structures.
The county estimates that if 60% of homeowners in Altadena and elsewhere in unincorporated Palisades rebuild, it would amount to $84 million in building permit fees.
Permitting is only one hurdle. For most, state and local building codes have changed in the decades since many of these homes were originally built, meaning the house has to have changes and extras that insurance covering a like-to-like rebuild does not account for.
Additionally, as we heard repeatedly while the fires were raging in January, many people who lost their homes were underinsured. Amy Bach, executive director of the consumer advocacy group United Policyholders, told Santa Monica media outlet KCRW recently that typically, “two-thirds of wildfire victims are underinsured, but in this case, she expects the rate to be as high as 75% to 80%.”
Bach said, homeowners insurance is “aimed at putting you back in the same position as you were before the loss, but in reality, people often find that the building codes have changed since their home was built, and they literally could not put back the same house that they had.”
Worse, in what sure looks like a textbook example of progressive leaders exploiting a crisis to push their own agenda, it turns out that Newsom and Bass have some plans of their own: Why not purchase fire‑destroyed lots at distressed prices with taxpayer dollars and convert them into low‑income housing?
It’s unclear exactly when the pair first conceived this idea, but considering that the idea is now a bill that was just passed by the California Senate, it must have been fairly early on.
BREAKING – The California Senate has passed SB 549, granting LA County authority to purchase fire‑destroyed lots for minimal cost and convert them into low‑income housing, directly contradicting Gavin Newsom’s previous assurance to homeowners that such government‑driven property…
— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) July 15, 2025
The California State Assembly will begin consideration of SB 549 on Wednesday.
Newsom is clearly very excited about this plan. Last week, his office announced he had allocated $101 million to jumpstart the project.
The news release says, “The $101 million being made available today will support the development of affordable multifamily rental housing in Los Angeles, prioritizing the needs of displaced residents in the fire-devastated regions.”
It includes a quote from Tomiquia Moss, Secretary of the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency:
The State’s special Multifamily Finance Super NOFA will galvanize the collective public-private response to the wildfires in Los Angeles County, expediting and expanding opportunities to build affordable housing for low-income residents. By prioritizing affordable housing projects that are ready to go, these funds will accelerate household stability, climate and health outcomes in communities.
Newsom seems to have this all under control. Why, it’s almost as if he’s been planning this project for six months!
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
Ssshhh! Don’t give Katie Hobbs any ideas, or she’ll rebuild the entire North Rim of the Grand Canyon in low-income housing!
Grand Canyon will be filled to the north rim with trash in one year.
Years ago I spent most of a summer camped out on the North Rim doing wildlife surveys for the AZ G&F and US Forest Service. It was spectacular sitting at a campfire and watching the sun rise over the canyon every morning. It makes me sad it’s burning. That lodge was spectacular
Funny, they keep telling me that they’re not communists all the while doing things that communists do.
What’s that stone cold quote about getting what you vote for good and hard?
Remember. Back when the fires first happened, Newscum made a huge deal about passing a bill that FORBID people from selling their property to a private company, claiming it was ‘predatory’.
The private companies were offering MORE than the government is offering now.
Newscum was terrified that people were actually going to get a fair price for their property and companies would actually be able to use the land to profit.
Color me surprised. He’s such a scumbag
These are Californians. I am an old man. And for my entire life every time that California residents have had to encounter any level of government in California, said residents have been swindled and abused. And the abuse is not the only constant. It is a matter of ontological certainty that at no time will anyone in any of those levels of government have to pay any price for committing those swindles and abuses.
Subotai Bahadur
And Californians, acting like the abused spouse that they are, keep going back to the ones that keep beating them.
Sometimes, conspiracy theories are just spoilers of things to come.
It’s not the job of government to buy private property for ‘development’, but here we are.
It has been, ever since SCOTUS gave them the green light in Kelo.
Visualize if you will, scads of concrete Khrushchevka-style apartment buildings on the slopes of the Palisades. They’ll look even more wonderful in 25 years when rusting rebar stains cover them. It will be an LAPD no-go zone as well.
It’s the perfect self-feeding loop the Democrats love too. Put minority groups into housing where there will inevitably be more firestorms and then act surprised and allocate ever more money to Democrats rebuilding the neighborhoods for the poor disadvantaged and helpless black people.
I read that in Rod Serling’s voice.
“In what was likely the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, the January 2025 wildfires that tore through vast swaths of the Greater Los Angeles area burned over 50,000 acres and destroyed more than 16,000 homes and other structures.”
Caused by Nature, made worse by California’s Leftist government,
We don’t actually know that it was caused by nature. The secondary fires certainly had human help.
I can’t put here what I want happening to those two. And, anyone in the state legislature voting yes on the bill.
It was clear that this was what they were going to do from back when Trump was there and we got to see Bass and Newsom liying their butts off about everything. It was obvious that they would never let LA be built back to what it was (and that Malibu would not allow anyone to rebuild on the beach) and that they would use this opportunity to further what they’ve been doing for years.
I don’t know who would be surprised by any of this. I called it back when the fires were still burning.
And the pathetic part is that the people responsible for all this damage all skated away free and have been left in power to further destroy the place. Until some of these people start being held liable for their crimes and their jaw-dropping destruction it’s only going to get worse and accelerate.
Furthermore, the announcement of this low income housing project is likely to induce other burned out familes into taking their money and running from the coming “Pacific Projects”.
“Vote Blue, No Matter Who!”
Oh, nice…we can have our own Gaza strip soon.
Let’s see if I can start a conspiracy theory:
LA was hoping the area would burn so they could buy it on the cheap . Thus they reneged on fire prevention preparation.
Makes you wonder why Mayor Bass had an ironclad alibi in Ghana.
Don’t think it’s a theory. Someone should ask Gavin how much it cost him to have those fires started.
They will drag out the permit approval process for 5-10 years, hoping the owners give up exhausted, and sell to “non-profit” housing developers with political connections, who will then get their low income multi-family projects fast-tracked for approvals.
at least lefty sticks to their agenda
now get the fiscal conservative gop to follow their agenda !!
Is there a conservative GOP agenda in place for fixing this burned out area of California?
There must be – otherwise, there would be no reason to make this comment on a post about what is going on there, right?
CA judge will claim that homeless junkies that camp on vacant lots for 30 days have acquired “tenant rights” and can’t be “evicted” without the lot owner providing “replacement housing”.
70% of owners in those neighborhoods are limousine libs who voted for newsom and bass and their own self destruction.
in a word YES
this was the plan,
in other news water is still wet
Evidently you don’t need eminent domain – all you need is a match and accelerant.
and bureaucrats.
Can you say “stack and packs”? “15-minute cities”?
I knew you could.
Another day, another conspiracy theory coming true. Of course this was the plan all along, they even told people before they realized how bad it looked and shut up about it. Just refuse to issue permits or move so slowly and make it so expensive and viola! People deserting the state and California buying the land for pennies on the dollar to build their utopia.
I suppose that the wealthy who could rebuild would not like to build a mansion near a low income hi rise.
I’ll got a step further. These fires didn’t “happen,” they were set deliberately in a coordinated fashion. We know that.
The reservoirs and hydrants were empty making it impossible for firefighters to put out the fires.
The government even went so far as to stop those who were contracting private wildland fire crews.
This entire scenario was planned to the very last detail. There is no other way you get from 1 year ago to today on accident.
Newsom had a dream Cabrini–Green. What’s old is new again.
Was building in in the Bay area in 1991 when the Oakland hills fire occurred. and 1989 earthquake. Widely discussed at the aftermath of both was the need for California residents to have insurance riders covering building code upgrades. Code changes can more than double the reconstruction cost.
The burning of multiple high rich areas have lead to 6 months with less than 1% getting building permits. Newsom and Bass putting Public Housing is a high rich area is going to set off the Dems doners as they cannot build back their homes.
The rich want no part of public housing anywhere near them as Maxine Watters lives nowhere close to her House district. I know what Public Housing is like because I worked in the areas back in the 70s to pay for college and life and it was not safe and the people living there did not keep their places up.
How convenient this bill is.
And how fortuitous it was that reservoirs were empty and hydrants were dry just when needed to be unable to put out raging fires.
How long before they started the fires do you think they had this bill ready?
You incorrectly said “In what was likely the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history” – the January fires were not “NATURAL”, they were the direct result of WILLFUL CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE! Gov. Newsom signed but refused to follow California’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, A Comprehensive Strategy of the Governor’s Forest Management Task Force in 2021. It says “Landscapes at risk of wildfire cross multiple ownerships and need strong partnerships among federal, state, local and tribal entities and private landowners.” Under KEY GOALS “Strengthen Protection of Communities”, promising to build a large network of fuel breaks in and around communities to reduce risks to catastrophic wildfires, and to reduce utility-related wildfire risk. “Create fire-safe roadways and evacuation routes”. The state did nothing to mitigate wildfire risk, thus ensuring that the exact same conditions of drought and Santa Ana winds and unprecedented failure to maintain wild lands and forests – guaranteed by the non-elected misguided activists and obstructionist regulations – that will force more communities that had survived for 100 years or more to burn to the ground because of the buildup of forest and chaparral fuel that historically was responsibly maintained since the Gabrieleno and Tongva tribes inhabited this area, but is now irresponsibly ignored! The state will continue to prohibit the US government from doing controlled burns and excess fuel & dead tree removal from National Forests, and other chaparral and forest areas under local and state ownership, forcing all to wait 7.5 years for approval to do a single controlled burn, or over 5 years for approval to do a mechanical removal of such dangerous fuel.
Further, the state has driven out nearly every source of commercial home fire insurance, forcing homeowners to use state-provided fire insurance. When, immediately after the January fires, the state realized it could never cover the costs beyond the January fires, the solution was that the state declared that the land occupied by fully 10% of the entire state population of 40 million as SUDDENLY at ELEVATED FIRE RISK, and charged these homeowners higher rates for the state-monopoly fire insurance!
Now the state is ready to ALSO profit from the purchase of the lands destroyed by state mismanagement at literally “Fire Sale” prices!