
Danielle Neal is a fourth-generation resident of Altadena who saw the house she grew up in and the home she rented burn down in the wildfires that swept through Los Angeles County.
Neal, 30, said her aunt and uncle, who lived in the family home, have already been deluged by parties looking to purchase the still smoldering ruins at a steep discount.
“There’s not a lot of compassion,” Neal said of the speculators. “It feels like a version of looting.”
Real estate vultures are circling the middle-class community of Altadena and other burned out parts of Los Angeles, hungry to turn a profit from fire victims still struggling with where they’ll live and how they’ll rebuild their homes and lives. Investors are reaching out to people like Neal’s family, as well as to local real estate agents who’ve fielded inquiries from across the country.
Neal’s fear, and that of many in her community, is that the wildfires will change the character of a neighborhood that had long been home […]
It is much, much worse than the article states. You see, the environmental laws in California as so strict that from application to start of building could take between two and three years with the hearing and permitting process being so complex. But California is far too small for the likes of Gavin Newsom. He has his eyes set on larger prizes. The area around LA is 80 percent Democrat. As a consequence, Newsom not only watched lives, buildings, homes, and business go up in flames – he watched potential campaign contributions evaporating. He needs this money for his campaign, and cannot afford the residents to be mired in three years of permitting in order to re-build. He has other plans for what he will be doing in three years. So, the good Governor has suspended the environmental regulations in that specific area to allow for much faster re-building. “Regulation for thee, but not for me.”