A year ago, wildfires tore through Los Angeles and surrounding communities, destroying some 16,000 buildings in their path. In the immediate aftermath, the devastation was widely framed as a natural disaster. But even then, it was clear that policy failures had amplified the damage—namely land-use rules that concentrate housing in fire-prone suburban areas while limiting construction in well-serviced central ones. A year later, those same anti-density policies are creating a second, man-made crisis: a stalled recovery.

By the end of 2025, local authorities had issued permits for just 13% of destroyed homes. Of the roughly 16,000 buildings lost, only about 500 are currently under reconstruction. This is an astonishingly low figure for a region that was already experiencing a home shortage; just 15,000 units annually were built last decade in L.A. County compared to 70,000/year six decades ago. The metro’s coterie of municipalities already have among the slowest and most cumbersome permitting systems in the country, and rebuilding has exposed just how dysfunctional they are. Even for “like-for-like” rebuilds—projects that restore what previously existed—homeowners face months of review. Land-use experts note that under normal conditions, the average permit for a new........

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