A petition to the Los Angeles City Council and Board of Building and Safety Commissioners from residents of the City’s Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone communities

In January 2025, the Palisades and Altadena fires killed at least 28 people and destroyed 16,000 structures. The chaotic, gridlocked hillside evacuations were seen in real time on live television — and they were entirely foreseeable. California law has required the City of Los Angeles to enforce minimum fire safety standards for hillside development since July 1, 2021. The City has not done so. We are asking the City Council and Board of Building and Safety Commissioners to pause new construction permits in Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones until the City puts the proper project review process in place.

Background
Since July 1, 2021, California law — specifically Public Resources Code § 4290 and Title 14 CCR §§ 1270 et seq. — has required the City of Los Angeles to apply State Minimum Fire Safe Development Regulations to proposed new structures in Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones (VHFHSZs). These regulations mandate minimum roadway widths, turning radii, road grades, building setbacks, and notification to CAL FIRE before any permit may issue. In its own 2025 General Plan Safety Element, the City expressly committed to enforce these regulations. In its 2024 Local Hazard Mitigation Plan submitted to the federal government (FEMA) — the document the City relies on to receive federal disaster recovery funds — the City represented that it would "ensure compliance with the state minimum fire-safe regulations." At that same time, the City was routinely issuing building permits in VHFHSZ areas without any publicly documented compliance review — suggesting the City made a material misrepresentation to the federal government. Ongoing litigation (Federation of Hillside and Canyon Associations v. City of Los Angeles) has documented at least 75 cases where the City approved VHFHSZ projects without compliance review and without any formal exception process. At least 12 of those cases are in the Mount Washington and Glassell Park neighborhoods alone.

FINDINGS OF FACT

WHEREAS, Climate change demands urgent action in VHFHSZs. Climate change has exponentially increased the frequency, speed, and destructive power of wind-driven wildfires across California, compelling the State Legislature and the State Fire Marshal to expand mapping of Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones (‘VHFHSZs’) as the statutory mechanism identifying communities facing extreme risks to life and property. That mapping imposes solemn land use and permitting duties on local jurisdictions. The City of Los Angeles
contains one of the largest VHFHSZ designations of any California city, placing upon City officials a heightened duty to protect the lives of firefighters and the hundreds of thousands of residents who live within them.

WHEREAS, State Minimum Fire Safe Regulations have applied in VHFHSZs of the City since
July 1, 2021. California law — specifically Public Resources Code § 4290 and Title 14, California Code of Regulations, §§ 1270 et seq. — has since July 1, 2021, required the City to apply State Minimum Fire Safe Development Regulations to proposed new structures in VHFHSZs, mandating minimum roadway widths, turning radii, road grades, building setbacks, CAL FIRE notification, and incorporation of fire safe mitigation into each project approval or building permit before any permit may issue.

WHEREAS, The City acknowledged its duty in its own General Plan — then failed to comply.
The City acknowledged its legal duty in its 2025 General Plan Safety Element (Policy 1.1.6 and
Programs 47 and 48), expressly committing to ‘ensure new development in VHFHSZs adheres to the Fire Safe Regulations — yet to date there is strong evidence the City has failed to establish any administrative process to provide CAL FIRE with required notices, evaluate project-by-project roadway access compliance, incorporate fire safe mitigation into permits, or create the formal exception process for projects unable to meet minimum standards.

WHEREAS, The City made representations to FEMA to obtain federal disaster funds —
while not complying. In its June 2024 Local Hazard Mitigation Plan submitted to FEMA — on which the City relies to remain eligible for federal pre-disaster mitigation grants and post-disaster recovery funds — the City represented it would ‘ensure compliance with the state minimum fire-safe regulations.’ At that time the City had no compliant implementing program and was routinely issuing permits in VHFHSZ areas without any publicly documented compliance review, suggesting a material misrepresentation to the federal government.

WHEREAS, The Palisades and Altadena Fires killed 28 people on streets like Crane
Boulevard. On January 7, 2025, the Palisades Fire killed 12 people and destroyed approximately 6,600 structures; the concurrent Altadena Fire killed at least 16 more people and destroyed approximately 9,400 structures — a combined catastrophe of at least 28 deaths and 16,000 structures lost. The chaotic, gridlocked hillside evacuations seen on live television were precisely the foreseeable consequence of inadequate evacuation access that the Fire Safe Regulations are designed to prevent.

WHEREAS, Spencer Pratt’s mayoral candidacy brought City bureaucratic dereliction of fire
safety duties to national attention. The 2026 Los Angeles mayoral candidacy of Spencer Pratt drew sustained national and international media attention to the City’s failure to diligently take all possible actions to protect its hillside residents, raising public consciousness of these City failures to the point of White House awareness. While Mr. Pratt did not remain in the race, the serious institutional failures he identified remain unresolved and demand urgent action by the City Council and its oversight commissions.

WHEREAS, Illustrative case: the City issued void permits for 464–466 Crane Blvd. in a
VHFHSZ. As an illustrative case, the City issued seven building, grading, and shoring permits for a new three-story luxury residence at 464–466 Crane Boulevard in the Mount Washington VHFHSZ without notifying CAL FIRE, without any publicly documented compliance review, and without applying the required 30-foot setback — on a street with a documented turning radius of only 13 feet (state minimum: 50 feet) and evacuation grades exceeding 20 percent. These permits are void under LAMC § 11.02 as issued in violation of state law and LAFC § 57.4908.1.

WHEREAS, At least 75 unlawful approvals documented citywide — 12 in Mount
Washington/Glassell Park. Ongoing litigation — Federation of Hillside and Canyon Associations v. City of Los Angeles — has documented at least 75 cases where the City approved VHFHSZ projects without publicly documented compliance review and without any exception process, at least 12 of which are in Mount Washington and Glassell Park — the same neighborhood as 464–466 Crane Boulevard — illustrating the seriousness and geographic concentration of the City’s dereliction of duty.

WHEREAS, Each new hillside permit adds cumulative evacuation risk for all existing
residents. Each new dwelling unit approved without Fire Safe Regulation compliance adds more residents and vehicles requiring simultaneous evacuation to hillside road networks already documented as deficient, incrementally worsening the conditions that led to the Palisades and Altadena disasters. Hillside residents are entitled to demand this cumulative harm stop.

WHEREAS, 464–466 Crane Blvd. should be acquired as a public pedestrian evacuation
corridor. By way of example, the vacant double lots at 464–466 Crane Boulevard represent a rare opportunity: located along an already densely populated deficient hillside street and linked below to a dirt fire road under consideration for open space protection, these parcels could be acquired by public agencies and developed as a pedestrian escape route and safety corridor — consistent with the historic network of pedestrian ways, stairways, and planned walkways in the City’s original streetcar-era subdivision maps — allowing residents to walk out of the VHFHSZ on foot should vehicular evacuation routes become gridlocked.

WE THEREFORE DEMAND

1. The Board of Building and Safety Commissioners and/or the Los Angeles City Council revoke all building, grading, and shoring permits issued for 464–466 Crane Boulevard (Permit Nos.
22010-10000-01079,
22010-10001-01079,
20030-10000-03239,
22030-10000-01549,
22030-10000-01587,
22020-10000-00511, and
24020-10000-01582) as void under LAMC §11.02, and that no permits for this project be reconsidered until the City has established a fully compliant Fire Safe Regulation implementing program.

2. The Board of Building and Safety Commissioners transmit to the Los Angeles City Council a formal recommendation that the City Council direct the City Attorney, Department of City
Planning, LADBS, Bureau of Engineering, and Los Angeles Fire Department to jointly develop
and circulate for public review — including review by all affected Neighborhood Councils and
relevant City Council Committees — a unified administrative program implementing the State
Minimum Fire Safe Development Regulations for all new construction in the City’s VHFHSZ
areas.

3. No new building permits for new construction in any VHFHSZ area of the City be issued until the implementing program described above is in place, until the proper reviewing City departments determine on a documented, project-by-project basis that the applicable minimum requirements are met or a lawful, CAL FIRE-noticed exception has been granted with enforceable mitigation conditions.

4. The City Council direct appropriate public agencies to evaluate the acquisition of the parcels at 464–466 Crane Boulevard for public use as a pilot demonstration project of the feasibility of establishing pedestrian safety and evacuation corridors, consistent with the historic streetcar-era pedestrian way network of Los Angeles hillside subdivisions, as a viable mitigation for the existing roadway deficiencies of the City’s historic hillside areas.