Sixteen Months Later, More Than Four in Five Destroyed Homes Still Have No Rebuild Permit
More than a year after the Palisades and Eaton fires destroyed over 16,000 homes and structures across Los Angeles, the rebuilding process has stalled in ways that the public narrative around permitting reform hasn’t fully captured.
By January 2026, the U.S. Small Business Administration had approved more than $3.2 billion in disaster loans for Los Angeles County wildfire survivors. Only about 22% of that funding had been disbursed. Less than 15% of all homes destroyed by the fires had received the necessary approvals to rebuild. The SBA publicly attributed the bottleneck to state and local permitting delays, extending its disaster loan disbursement deadlines for the second time specifically because local bureaucracy was preventing thousands of survivors from breaking ground.
Governor Newsom issued a series of executive orders suspending CEQA review and Coastal Act permitting requirements for wildfire rebuilds. Mayor Bass issued her own emergency orders. The federal government weighed in. And yet, the permits weren’t coming.
What is less widely understood is that the permit delay problem is not just a bureaucratic inconvenience. In certain circumstances, when a government agency unreasonably delays or withholds a permit in ways that deprive a property owner of the use of their land, that conduct can cross a constitutional line. California law and federal civil rights law both recognise situations where permit delay becomes something more than administrative frustration.
This blog examines what those legal frameworks are, how they apply to the LA rebuild context, and what the constitutional landscape looks like for property owners whose rebuilds have been blocked by government inaction.
What the Executive Orders Actually Suspended, and What They Didn’t
Before examining the constitutional remedies, it’s worth understanding what the various executive orders issued in response to the fires actually accomplished, because the scope of those suspensions is frequently misunderstood in both directions.
On January 12, 2025, Governor Newsom issued Executive Order N-4-25, which suspends CEQA and the California Coastal Act with respect to development projects that demolish, repair, restore or replace property lost due to the Palisades, Eaton, Hurst, Lidia, Sunset or Woodley fires. The suspension covers reconstruction to substantially the same location at not more than 110% of the original footprint and height.
A subsequent order issued on February 13, 2025 further clarified and expanded the scope of the Coastal Act and CEQA suspensions, providing the full scope of flexibility local governments had requested and extending the duration of permits.
As analysed in the Holland & Knight overview of the rebuild executive orders, one notable exclusion in many of the executive orders was corresponding authority to expedite permitting for the infrastructure that will need to be rebuilt to serve the damaged communities. The orders addressed individual residential and commercial reconstruction but left significant permitting requirements for shared infrastructure, utilities, and community facilities largely intact.
There is also a factual nuance that matters for affected property owners: CEQA and Coastal Act review would not have been required to rebuild individual single-family homes in most fire-affected areas even without the executive orders. Routine like-for-like residential rebuilds were generally already exempt from CEQA. What the executive orders addressed was a broader set of permitting conditions and the accelerated timelines for applications that went beyond straightforward replacement.
What the executive orders did not do is eliminate local building department review, structural plan check, engineering requirements, grading permits, or the practical capacity constraints at agencies like LADBS and LA County’s Department of Public Works. Those constraints are precisely where the backlog has accumulated. LA City was processing applications in 79 days on average, while LA County lagged behind at 131 days.
When a Permit Delay Becomes a Constitutional Problem
The constitutional framework for challenging government permit delays in California has two distinct but related branches: inverse condemnation under the California Constitution, and civil rights claims under federal law.
Understanding how these frameworks interact with the LA rebuild situation requires first understanding what each requires.
Inverse Condemnation and the Lockaway Storage Precedent
The California Constitution prohibits the government from taking or damaging private property for public use without just compensation. As the blog on this site covering inverse condemnation doctrine explains in detail, this protection extends to government conduct that damages property rights without formally initiating a condemnation proceeding.
The firm’s landmark win in Lockaway Storage v. County of Alameda is the most direct illustration of how this doctrine applies to permit delays specifically. In that case, the Constitutional Property Rights practice at Kassouni Law successfully argued that Alameda County’s arbitrary denial of building permits for a storage facility constituted an unconstitutional taking. The California Court of Appeal unanimously upheld a finding of inverse condemnation liability, characterised the County’s arguments as “nonsense,” overturned Landgate v. California Coastal Commission, and awarded the property owner more than $2.7 million in damages, interest, and attorney fees.
The Lockaway Storage decision is significant in the LA rebuild context because it established, as a published California precedent, that arbitrary permit denial is not merely bureaucratic error. When a government agency’s conduct in withholding permits crosses the line from legitimate regulatory review into arbitrary, bad-faith obstruction, the constitutional obligation to compensate the property owner arises. That said, California courts have consistently been reluctant to find inverse condemnation liability for permit delays, even where the delay was improper. Lockaway Storage represents the exception rather than the rule, and its result turned on evidence that the County’s conduct was specifically arbitrary rather than merely slow or administratively flawed.
Inverse condemnation arising from permit delay typically requires showing that the government’s conduct materially interfered with the property owner’s investment-backed expectations for the land, and that the interference was more than temporary or de minimis. Extended delays in a wildfire rebuild context, particularly where the property owner has no usable structure and is paying for alternative housing, carry significant potential for satisfying that threshold.
Klopping Damages: A Precondemnation Doctrine Worth Understanding
A related doctrine, more precisely applicable in situations where a government agency has signalled an intent to acquire fire-affected properties for public purposes, is the precondemnation damages framework established in Klopping v. City of Whittier (1972) 8 Cal.3d 39.
Klopping is a precondemnation doctrine. It applies specifically where a government entity has made an announcement of intent to condemn property, or has engaged in other unreasonable conduct in connection with a condemnation proceeding, and the property owner has suffered measurable economic harm as a result. Under Klopping, a condemnee must demonstrate that the public authority acted improperly either by unreasonably delaying eminent domain action following an announcement of intent to condemn, or by other unreasonable conduct prior to condemnation, and that as a result the property in question suffered a diminution in market value.
The measure of damages under Klopping may include the cost of repairs, the loss of use of the property, loss of rent, loss of profits, or increased operating expenses pending repairs.
What Klopping does not cover is general permit processing delay in the absence of any condemnation proceeding or signal. A slow building department is not a Klopping situation. The doctrine requires that the government entity have indicated a firm intention to acquire the property, through either a formal resolution of condemnation or equivalent conduct that amounts to an announcement of that intent.
Where Klopping becomes relevant in the LA wildfire rebuild context is narrower and specific: some fire-affected property owners in Los Angeles have faced situations where government agencies have signalled intent to acquire their parcels for public purposes, whether for road widening, open space, utilities, or other infrastructure. Where that signal has caused a delay in permitting approval and measurable economic harm, the precondemnation framework may provide an avenue for compensation. The doctrine requires proof that the conduct was unreasonable, that it directly and specially affected the property owner’s interests, and that it directly caused the claimed economic loss, as distinct from general market effects or unrelated delays.
Section 1983: Federal Civil Rights Claims Against Government Officials
The third constitutional avenue available to property owners facing unreasonable permit delays is a federal civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, which creates a private right of action against state and local government actors who violate federal constitutional rights.
Section 1983 does not create any constitutional rights itself. It provides the mechanism to enforce rights that already exist under the U.S. Constitution. For property owners, the relevant constitutional protections include the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments’ guarantees against deprivation of property without due process, and the Takings Clause’s requirement of just compensation when property is taken or effectively destroyed by government action.
In the permit delay context, a Section 1983 claim would typically require showing that a government official, acting under colour of state law, engaged in conduct that intentionally or systematically deprived a property owner of a constitutionally protected property interest without adequate procedural protections, and that the conduct amounted to more than ordinary negligence or administrative error.
Two important limitations apply. First, individual government officials sued in their personal capacity may assert qualified immunity, which protects them from liability unless they violated a clearly established constitutional right. Second, under Monell v. New York City Department of Social Services (1978), municipalities and local governments can be held liable under Section 1983, but only when the constitutional violation results from an official policy, custom, or practice of the government entity, not merely from the actions of an individual employee. Monell liability also requires demonstrating deliberate indifference: that the municipality was aware its policy or custom posed a substantial risk of constitutional violation and consciously disregarded that risk. A pattern of systematic permit delay that reflects an official policy or custom of the city or county, and that the municipality knew was causing constitutional harm but failed to address, is the kind of conduct that can support Monell liability. That is a demanding standard that requires strong factual development beyond showing the process was slow or inconsistent.
The Civil Rights practice at Kassouni Law encompasses exactly this intersection, where government conduct that violates constitutional property rights meets the federal civil rights framework that provides a remedial avenue in federal court.
What the Numbers Tell Us About the Delay
The SBA data provides the clearest documented picture of how the permit backlog has affected LA wildfire survivors. The SBA has approved over 12,000 loans for $3.2 billion in Los Angeles, but only 22% of the funding had been disbursed, with most survivors unable to move forward until they received approval from state and local officials. Only about 1,200 rebuild permits had been issued across the City and County of Los Angeles when the agency first extended its deadlines in October 2025.
More than 2,600 residential rebuilding permits have since been issued in the Palisades and Altadena, representing roughly one in five of the nearly 13,000 homes destroyed. An additional 3,340 permits remain under review.
The contributing factors are documented and specific. LADBS is experiencing backlogs driven by several compounding factors, including the flood of rebuild applications from fire-affected neighbourhoods, a workforce that was depleted during the pandemic and has not fully recovered, and updated California building codes that took effect January 1, 2026, requiring additional review time for energy efficiency, seismic, fire-resistance, and water conservation standards.
These factors matter for the constitutional analysis because they distinguish between delays caused by systemic capacity failures, which may not rise to the level of actionable government misconduct, and delays caused by specific agency conduct that directly and arbitrarily targets particular property owners or classes of owners. The constitutional doctrines outlined above are most powerful where the latter is demonstrable.
How the LA Rebuild Context Fits the Constitutional Framework
Three situations in the LA rebuild context are most likely to engage the constitutional doctrines described above.
Targeted or bad-faith denials. Where a specific property owner has been denied a permit or had a permit unreasonably conditioned in ways that appear arbitrary, inconsistent with the treatment of similarly situated owners, or disconnected from any legitimate regulatory purpose, inverse condemnation may be available. The Lockaway Storage precedent is directly on point: arbitrary government conduct in the permit process is constitutionally actionable. Felkay v. City of Santa Barbara (2021), a more recent California Court of Appeal decision, affirmed that permit denial inverse condemnation claims can proceed where the denial makes clear that no development of the property would be allowed under any circumstances, and that in those cases a property owner is not required to submit multiple applications before bringing a constitutional claim.
Permit conditions that effectively take property rights. Where a government agency has conditioned a rebuild permit on the surrender of property rights, such as requiring easements, imposing restrictions on future use, or demanding waivers of constitutional protections as a condition of approval, those conditions may be challengeable under the Nollan/Dolan essential nexus and rough proportionality framework, which applies to permit conditions imposed in connection with any development approval.
Systematic patterns affecting identifiable groups. Where the delay is not random but reflects a practice or policy that consistently disadvantages particular owners or types of properties, the Monell theory of municipal liability under Section 1983 becomes relevant. A policy of requiring additional review steps for specific property categories, or of routinely imposing conditions on rebuild permits that exceed what the law authorises, may constitute an official custom or practice sufficient to ground municipal liability.
The Role of the Appeals Process
A property owner who has received a permit denial, or has had permit conditions imposed that they believe are unlawful, has administrative remedies available before turning to constitutional litigation. The firm’s Appeals practice is relevant here because permit denials and conditions can in many cases be challenged through the administrative appeal process, including writ of administrative mandate in California state court.
An administrative appeal preserves the record, establishes that the property owner exhausted available remedies, and in some cases results in correction of the error without the need for constitutional litigation. Writ proceedings also allow courts to examine whether an agency’s decision was arbitrary, capricious, or unsupported by the evidence in the record. Where a permit denial is overturned on writ review, the documented evidence of agency arbitrariness can also support a subsequent inverse condemnation claim.
The Constitutional Framework Is Real but Requires Specific Facts
The doctrines described in this blog are not theoretical. The Lockaway Storage precedent demonstrates that California courts will hold government agencies constitutionally accountable for arbitrary permit conduct. Klopping damages are a recognised element of California eminent domain practice applicable where the government has announced intent to acquire property and acted unreasonably in that process. Section 1983 provides a federal civil rights avenue for property owners whose constitutional interests have been violated by state or local officials acting under colour of law.
What they share is a requirement for specific facts. Constitutional claims arising from permit delays require showing something more than that the process took longer than expected or that the agency was understaffed. They require evidence that the government’s conduct was arbitrary, that it specifically targeted or specially harmed the property owner in question, and that it caused measurable economic damage beyond the ordinary costs of the regulatory process.
The firm’s track record in property rights and constitutional litigation reflects decades of experience identifying where government conduct in the permit and land use context crosses the constitutional line, and building the documented record needed to hold agencies accountable when it does.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long can the government legally delay a permit to rebuild a home destroyed in the LA fires?
There is no fixed legal time limit on permit processing under California law, but that does not mean unlimited delay is constitutionally permissible. Government agencies have constitutional obligations not to act arbitrarily, capriciously, or in ways that deprive property owners of reasonable use of their land without just compensation. Where a delay is caused by systemic capacity constraints, it typically does not rise to constitutional liability. Where a delay reflects arbitrary, bad-faith, or targeted conduct that specifically and materially harms a particular property owner, inverse condemnation or Section 1983 civil rights claims may apply. Klopping precondemnation damages are a separate doctrine relevant where the government has announced or indicated an intent to acquire a property through condemnation and then unreasonably delayed that action. The distinction between inconvenient delay and constitutionally actionable conduct is a fact-specific question that turns on the nature of the government’s conduct, not simply the length of the wait.
What are Klopping damages and do they apply to LA wildfire rebuild situations?
Klopping damages, established by the California Supreme Court in Klopping v. City of Whittier (1972), are a precondemnation doctrine. They provide compensation for property owners who suffer measurable economic harm as a result of a government agency’s unreasonable conduct in connection with an announced or pending condemnation proceeding. The doctrine requires that the government entity have indicated a firm intention to acquire the property, and that its subsequent conduct in delaying or mishandling that condemnation directly and specially harmed the property owner’s interests. In the LA wildfire rebuild context, Klopping is relevant specifically for property owners who have faced signals from a government agency that it intends to acquire their fire-affected parcel for a public purpose, such as road widening, open space, or infrastructure, and whose permitting situation has been adversely affected by that signal. It is not a remedy for general permit processing delay in the absence of any condemnation announcement or acquisition intent.
Did Governor Newsom’s executive orders eliminate all permitting requirements for LA wildfire rebuilds?
No. Governor Newsom’s executive orders suspended CEQA review and California Coastal Act permitting requirements for reconstruction of properties substantially damaged or destroyed in the covered fires, provided the rebuild is in substantially the same location at not more than 110% of the original footprint and height. The orders did not eliminate local building department plan check and review, engineering and structural requirements, grading permits, or the practical processing capacity of agencies like LADBS and LA County. The core permitting requirements that have produced the documented backlog, local plan check and approval, remain in place. The executive orders removed specific state-level environmental and coastal review requirements but did not override local building code administration.
Can a property owner sue the City of Los Angeles or LA County for delaying a rebuild permit?
This depends entirely on the nature of the delay. A lawsuit claiming constitutional liability for permit delay requires showing more than that the process was slow. Under California inverse condemnation doctrine, the delay must have been arbitrary and must have materially interfered with the property owner’s constitutional rights. Under Section 1983, the delay must reflect an official policy, custom, or practice of the government entity, not merely the actions of individual employees or capacity constraints, and the municipality must have been deliberately indifferent to the known constitutional harm its conduct was causing. Klopping damages apply in the narrower context where the government has announced an intent to condemn the property and then acted unreasonably in that condemnation process. Where the relevant elements can be demonstrated for any of these claims, constitutional causes of action against the city or county are legally available. The firm’s landmark Lockaway Storage result demonstrates that California courts will hold government agencies accountable when that evidence is present.
What is the difference between a building permit delay claim and a standard inverse condemnation claim in California?
Both are grounded in Article I, Section 19 of the California Constitution, but they arise from different government conduct. A standard inverse condemnation claim typically involves direct physical damage to property caused by government infrastructure or operations, such as flooding, fire caused by utility equipment, or physical destruction of land value. A permit delay inverse condemnation claim involves interference with the property owner’s right to use and develop their property through arbitrary or unlawful regulatory conduct. Both require showing that the government’s actions substantially caused the property owner’s loss, but the permit delay variant specifically turns on whether the agency’s conduct in the permitting process was arbitrary, exceeded its lawful authority, or violated constitutional limits on permit conditions. The Lockaway Storage decision, which involved an arbitrary permit denial rather than physical damage, is the leading California example of the permit delay variant.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this content. Contact Kassouni Law for a consultation regarding your specific situation. Past results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
