What to consider...property tax, standard plan, and insurance

It’s Sunday morning, and typically around this time, my husband and I are getting ready to walk down to the farmer’s market in the Village to get our weekly supplies. We would get a our guilty pleasure -a croissant from Tommy and Atticus, and then head over to Antioch to get our fish and fruits. We would come home, have our croissant and coffee while we read our newspaper (yes, we would still receive Sunday paper on actual newsprints). Since January 7th, 2025, this has changed. Our Sundays will be different. But I look forward to the new Sunday routine, once the Palisades is back. What I wanted to let people know today are reaction to some of the issues that I’ve been reading on line.

Standard Plans and property tax - There’s been a lot of chatter about standard plans for the rectangular lots for the rebuilt. I just wanted to caution my fellow neighbors not to jump into something without understand ramifications. From my understanding, both the State and the City’s executive order allows for expediting and grandfathering your former tax basis if you rebuild on the existing footprint, height and bulk. You can can change the material, appearance, and interior layout. However, until the assessors confirm this, standard plans may be an upgrade, and that will trigger reassessing. This is a LINK to an interview with a tax expert on CBS News LA regarding this.

Regarding insurance - Document, document, document. It’s incredible what we had in our homes, all the way down to the aluminum foil. All these can be claim on your insurance. This is a useful excel spreadsheet to get you started. Lastly, I’ll keep updating on what I find out about insurance, but most likely everyone will be on the CA Fair Plan. State Farm has announced that they will renew everyone’s insurance for another year. But what happens after? Here’s an article with the CA insurance commissioner.

That’s all for the day. Happy Sunday.

XO May

ADU and other resources.

Governor Newsom has added ADU to be exempt from CEQA and Coastal Act in a new executive order.. Which is good new. However, it is still unclear if grading will trigger CEQA and Coastal Act or not, which most lots in the Palisades will require.

To find out if your property is in the Coastal Zone on both the LA DBS Parcel Search (and you can find your permit history here too, if you home were built after 1990) and ZIMA.

There was a lot of great information given on the Palisades Community Meeting livestream lasts night. There are slow progress on the repopulation of the Palisades. It was just announced that people in the Riviera may return with ID. To find out if the evacuation notice has been lifter of your area, sign up for this the Protect.Genasys APP . Just input your address, and you’ll be alerted. But check back periodically. This map shows if your property has been assessed by Cal Fire. If your property has been assessed, this is the portal to request a report for your insurance company.

For brands that are offering discounts for fire victims. Please see this Google Doc.

Crest Real Estate hosted a great webinar today. I’ll share the link once it’s uploaded. But the gist of it is that:

1. Start collecting records. Permits, record plans, title reports, assessor information.

2. Review the zoning code.

3. Determine if there are non-conforming elements.

4. Determine if you want to Rebuild or Redevelop

LADBS is looking at exemption for survey and soils for the flat area and possibly having architect self certify. The City is also looking at issuing standard plans for fast permitting for flat rectangular lots. I personally have one flat rectangular lot in the Alphabets, and another sloped lot in the El Medio Bluffs. I’m hoping that this will be true. The City and the State are committed to speed up the rebuilding process. I’ll keep trying to add to this as often as I can.

Stay safe, please let me know if you have any questions.

XO May

Rebuild Palisades

Upon returning from Christmas holidays to our home in the Alphabet Streets in the Palisades, the most difficult thing that was confronting me was what New Year’s goals to set. Never did we imagine that our lives were to be turned completely upside down on Jan. 7th, 2025. I am not a blogger, but I wanted to start this to share resources with my neighbors about rebuilding the Palisades. I know it would be easier to just sell and collect insurance, but this was a magic community. Though I have only been here for twenty years, some of my neighbors in the Village have been there for generations. This is not just a town full of celebrities and wealthy families. This is also a town full of working class people that had purchased a home early on to raise their kids in a safe neighborhood. My kids were born and raised here. I lost a husband here. I fell in love with my new husband here. This was (and will be) my forever home. Now our schools are gone, our homes are gone, and our communities are gone. But I believe in the Palisadian spirit. We will rebuild. As an architect that have worked in the Palisades for twenty years, I am happy to share my knowledge and resources.

Whatever you do, DON’T SELL! It’s like losing a spouse. Don’t do anything rash for the first year. Right now there are a lot of agencies at the FEMA Disaster Center on Pico Blvd. to help you.

1. File an application for reassessment (FORM ADS-820) with the County Assessor.

2. Ask for forebearance from your mortgage company. You typically can extend this to 12 months.

3. Though FEMA may have rejected you because you have insurance, you can still seek displacement replacement. They will pay up to 2 months of displacement cost if you upload your insurance declaration pages.

4. Apply for SBA loan for both your home and your business, if it’s run from your home.

5. File for tax extensions, the government is even allowing for extensions for professionals that works and does not live in the Palisades.

Here are some of the latest items from the governmental agencies and handouts for rebuilding. The Cliff note version of it, is that you can build like for like. Same footprint, same height, and bulk. You can add 10% of the existing s.f.. However, you can change the design and interior layout of the project. You may also receive additional fund from your insurance company if you build up to current code by using more resilient and ecological materials. This may add another 20% on top of coverage A of your original coverage. But you should check with your insurance company.

Someone on the WhatsApp link group created this Google Doc with local resources for the rebuilding the Palisades. It’s a live document.

Here are some handouts I received from the FEMA office.

City of Los Angeles Emergency Executive Order No. 1

City of Los Angeles ZI No. 2523 CA Coastal Coastal Commission Development Permit No. A-381-78 Palisades Highlands (Pacific Palisades)

Palisades Fire Rebuild and Recovery Coastal Zone Requirement

Coastal Exemption - Single Jurisdiction Coastal Zone applications

Hope this helps. Do not hesitate to reach out with any questions.

XO May