2 weeks Ago By Jake Rodriguez
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass debuted a couple of key executive actions aimed at slashing the red tape and speeding up the timeline for the Palisades residents eager to rebuild after January's disastrous wildfires, according to the Mayor's Office.Last night's issuance of the Emergency Executive Order and Executive Directive precedes Bass's planned trip to Sacramento today, where she and City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto will advocate for more resources and supportive legislation dealing with liability payments. The announced measures include a first-of-its-kind self-certification pilot for the city, allowing licensed architects to verify that their plans are code-compliant, and a directive that encourages the use of AI technology to speed up the review of rebuild project plans against building and zoning codes.
However, critics express the caution that tools like AI should augment, not replace, human expertise or professional judgment."With these actions, we're cutting even more red tape and innovating processes within City Hall to get residents home as quickly and safely as possible," Bass said, as her initiatives are boasted as key to reducing timelines for the rebuilding process, aiming to set records for being the swiftest disaster recovery effort in California's modern history.Previous efforts by Bass included Executive Order 1, issued just days after the fire and later updated in March, which had already introduced measures like expedited review processes.
This order helped deliver building permits at more than twice the pace of past fires like Camp and Woolsey, with the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) averaging a plan check review time of about six days, which is twice as fast as before the wildfires, demonstrating an unmistakable urgency in the city's response to the disaster.Furthermore, the Mayor's Office indicated LADBS will release implementation guidelines for the self-certification program within a month, ensuring the program includes a comprehensive audit system and mandatory training for participating architects. As part of her directive, Bass has tasked the department with exploring the feasibility of an AI-assisted review pilot and reporting back within 30 days, followed by quarterly updates, but some residents and observers might still harbor concerns about how the integration of these new technologies will play out on the ground.
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