Six months after urban wildfires devastated neighborhoods in Los Angeles, signs of rebuilding are evident. Although the landscape still resembles a charred war zone, many residential lots have been cleared with assistance from FEMA. In Altadena and Pacific Palisades—the communities that, together, lost more than 16,000 structures—some homeowners are overcoming huge hurdles, such as permitting and steep construction costs, and are expected to begin rebuilding this year. And builders are banding together in a new Builders Alliance to share resources and incrementally ease the massive housing shortage that plagued the city even before the fires.
Builders are focusing on both fire zones, Altadena and Pacific Palisades, but Altadena—in northern L.A. County, where more than 4,000 homes were destroyed—to date shows stronger signs of rebirth. At least 24 families in Altadena’s La Viña neighborhood are collectively rebuilding on their lots. They have contracted with small homebuilder PLC Communities, which was building homes in the neighborhood before the fire. The families organized through an HOA Google chat group.
This cohort is the largest group of rebuilds in any of the fire zones to date. Families in Altadena are benefitting from reduced costs and expedited services, including plan approvals. The homes begin trenching—narrow excavations to lay foundations, install utility lines, or create drainage systems—this fall, with completed rebuilds expected by fall 2026.
“They offered us six floor plans to fit our variously sized lots,” said Pauline Ching, whose family lost its home. “And many of us have made even more changes. [Despite] the loss of all our valuables, we are very excited to be building a new home so quickly.” The plans—created by architects Bassenian Legoni, with feedback from PLC and the Altadena families—conform to existing square-foot variances and zoning requirements.
“When the family group contacted us through the HOA, it was a natural solution,” said Vice President of Operations Jeff Rulon of PLC Communities. “Our team is closely familiar with this community. Labor and materials are already on site, and the HOA-approved designs expedite as much as possible one of the biggest hurdles, which is plan approval. We’re very happy to help resolve the tragedies of these families in the quickest and most cost-effective way possible.”
One key reason for PLC Group’s head start in rebuilding: Each family’s home was in Altadena’s La Viña neighborhood, where the fire obliterated 54 of the 272 homes. PLC Communities is one among many builders that have been active in La Viña, which opened in 1998, over the years. A small, final portion of the enclave opened to development in 2024, and its homes will be complete this year, under the name Encore.
Brookfield Residential was also actively building in La Viña. CEO Adrian Foley said the firm has not yet signed agreements, but he expects at least 10 families to work with Brookfield in ways similar to the HOA families’ dealings with PLC Communities—limiting costs and delays by offering a small set of pre-approved floor plans, as well as achieving economies of scale by directing the same teams to build all the homes at once.
“We want to see how many we can rebuild efficiently,” Foley said. “This is not profitable for Brookfield, and we’re not looking for it to be. We just want to do what’s right for the community, and maybe in the future it will be of value for us.”
The Builders Alliance
Foley calls this part of Altadena a “test area” for a new entity—the Builders Alliance, which was among the recommendations in ULI’s 175-page Project Recovery response plan. The Builders Alliance will pool materials and marketing costs to buy at bulk scale and establish hubs close to burn areas for deploying labor and storing materials.
The Alliance’s 14 builders are now meeting every other week on everything from tariff and immigration to procurement and marketing. They also confer with Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass and with Los Angeles County supervisors Kathryn Barger, for Altadena, and Lindsey P. Horvath, for Pacific Palisades.
Most requests to the public sector are to streamline permitting and inspections. This process includes the builders offering to perform private inspections—a crucial Project Recovery recommendation. Under current law, all building permits and inspections must be approved by Los Angeles City Planning or Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, depending on the location. Project Recovery advises liberalizing these regulations—a cause of the region’s sluggish construction pace even before the fires—by letting homeowners and their builder/engineering representatives “self-certify.” Doing so would take the burden of inspections and approvals off the understaffed public sector.
“Without permit relief, it will take forever,” Foley said, although all parties say that the departments are trying to speed approvals as much as possible. “We’re still at the formative stage, but there is a lot of optimism.” The next phase for the Builders Alliance is to coordinate with community organizations and, in August, launch a marketing portal—a digital representation of lots, homes, and prices, which will funnel families to appropriate builders.
According to preliminary Builders Alliance documents, the 14-member alliance comprises five high-volume builders (offering the most affordable options), six mid-volume builders (offering mid-range pricing), and three low-volume builders (offering the most expensive homes, in fully custom designs).
“We will move customers though the funnel in a process that makes cost sense,” Foley said. “We may end up offering variations on 10 different floor plans, depending on lot sizes, et cetera. Everything is aimed at achieving a critical mass of buyers.”
RCLCO Chair Gadi Kaufmann, who is among the ULI Los Angeles volunteers coordinating Project Recovery recommendations, said many of these decisions hinge on the Builders Alliance identifying a leader.
“This is a broader role than just building homes,” Kaufmann said. “It includes case management, identifying resources for financing, untangling insurance issues, finding philanthropic resources, et cetera. The Alliance will soon form a legal entity to address the totality of these efforts.”
In relation to the Builders Alliance, Kaufmann cited four of Project Recovery’s top recommendations: streamlining permitting and inspections, including self-certification and AI tools to speed the process; infrastructure improvements, including “hardening” the edges of communities with fire buffer zones, undergrounding of utilities, and improving street access for firefighting; logistics management, such as builders sharing and coordinating transportation, and bringing materials and labor to staging areas, while minimizing congestion and disruption; and acceleration of the city and county efforts to rebuild community institutions, such as the many destroyed schools, places of worship, libraries, arts centers, and community and recreation centers, as well as commercial facilities to support community life during and after the rebuilding period.
Although the Alliance is still organizing, one of its members, Genesis—a new subsidiary of larger Cityview, and a joint venture with Montage—is focusing on Altadena.
“The Builders Alliance services are a better fit for [Altadena], whereas, in the Palisades, the needs are more for custom or semi-custom homes on generally larger lots,” said Managing Director of Acquisitions Devang Shah, who is serving as Genesis project director. Genesis has already submitted six plans to the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning, and Shah expects them to be pre-approved for building by the time this article reaches print.
ULI L.A. and Project Recovery:
