In light of the tragic, wind-driven wildfires around Los Angeles County this week, many local construction services offices are shifting their resources in response.
Utilities such as LADWP, the Gas Co., etc., are moving a significant amount of personnel into damage assessment and repair. Departments that oversee public resources (such as city and county departments of Public Works, Bureaus of Engineering, etc.) are moving personnel into these time-critical roles as well.
In the city of Los Angeles, construction-related departments such as Building & Safety, Planning, Sanitation and Fire are also being impacted by the fires but in different ways. For example, LADBS has cancelled most of this week’s plan-check meetings. City Planning has cancelled all public hearings for the rest of the week (City Planning Commission, Zoning Administrator, etc.). It is unknown at this time if the meetings and hearings will resume on Monday.
This all comes at a time when staffing is down at these same departments by 20%-plus because of difficulty in hiring replacements for those who left during the pandemic.
As a result, we expect a delay in staff availability to allow these departments to respond to these immediate fire emergencies.
Please know that PCC will continue to advocate during this time for your projects. If city/county staff are available, we will be there to get project approvals.
We also expect that the city of Los Angeles and county of Los Angeles will each announce measures that will allow residents and businesses to expedite permitting to replace what was lost in the fires. Once we receive that information, we will of course share it with our partner professionals, project teams and clients as well.
Thank you for your understanding. Stay safe.
Chris Parker
CEO
Pacific Crest Consultants
