In a rare moment of political alignment last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Trump vowed to crack down on corporate home buying. Now, a new bill aims to make it a reality.
Assembly Bill 1611, introduced by Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco) in January, would eliminate a “tax loophole” that Haney says corporate landlords and investment firms use to buy up single-family homes across the state.
“It’s shocking to me that by design, our tax system lets large firms take advantage of tax breaks in order to outbid California families when buying homes,” Haney said. “They’re able to use a tax loophole to give themselves an upper hand.”
The so-called loophole takes the form of a 1031 exchange — a tax-filing strategy that allows real estate owners to defer capital gains taxes when they sell an investment property, such as a single-family home, as long as they buy a similar “like-kind” property within 180 days. Essentially, it allows investors to replace one investment property with another, avoiding taxes in the process.
The bill would ban companies that own at least 50 single-family homes from taking advantage of the tax break. It would apply to sales completed after Jan. 1, 2026.
California has the second-lowest homeownership rate in the country at 56%, and Haney said corporations shouldn’t be shirking real estate taxes in the midst of a housing crisis. The California Department of Finance estimated that during the current fiscal year, the state lost $1.2 billion in revenue due to like-kind exchanges.
Lenny Goldberg, the policy director for the California Tax Reform Assn., worked with Haney to develop the bill. He said he has viewed like-kind exchanges as a rip-off for years, but it’s an ongoing issue with a powerful lobby behind it.
“They’re called like-kind exchanges, but they’re not actually like-kind,” he said. “You can exchange an office building for a hotel, or an apartment building for a single-family home.”
He added that corporate investors aren’t buying up high-end neighborhoods; it’s mostly working-class or middle-class areas, where the affordability crisis is more acute.
Goldberg said the ban would help in two ways. First, it would result in more tax dollars being paid by corporations. And second, it would stop allowing corporations to dominate bidding wars for homes.
Currently, corporate owners can afford to bid more on a home than an individual, knowing that when they eventually sell it, they can avoid the capital gains tax by buying a different property, making it a more valuable asset. If they didn’t have access to that benefit, that advantage would be gone.
He sees it as a modest proposal; a more ambitious effort would be to eliminate like-kind exchanges altogether. But this is a good place to start, and it still lets mom-and-pop landlords or investors who own fewer than 50 properties to take advantage of the tax break, he said.
The corporate home buying trend became a focal point during the pandemic emergency, when low interest rates sent the housing market into a frenzy, and first-time home buyers competed with investors viewing the house as an asset, not a home. During the second quarter of 2021, 23% of home sales in L.A. County went to investors rather than someone wanting to live there.
But data show that corporate ownership still makes up a much smaller share of the overall market. Analysis from the California Research Bureau showed that 2.8% of single-family homes in the Golden State are owned by companies that own at least 10 properties.
The biggest chunk of that appears to be smaller mom-and-pop landlords rather than giant corporations. Companies with more than 50 properties own roughly 110,000 homes in California, whereas companies with 10 to 49 properties, which would be exempt from the ban, own roughly 235,000 properties.
Haney said now is the right time for the bill, given the momentum provided by Newsom and Trump last month.
Newsom vowed to take a tougher stance on corporate home buying in his final State of the State speech, saying that “it’s shameful that we allow private equity firms in Manhattan to become some of the biggest landlords in many of our cities.”
It’s unclear which form the crackdown will take; Newsom said it means more oversight and enforcement, and potentially changing the tax code.
A few weeks prior, Trump announced immediate steps to ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes, but no specific actions have been announced.
Haney said it’s also timely in the aftermath of the Palisades and Eaton fires, since data show that investors are flooding the market for burned-out lots, replacing longtime locals. A recent Redfin report said at least 40% of lot sales in fire-damaged areas went to investors in the third quarter of 2025.
“It shows you that this shouldn’t be a partisan issue. Whatever your political leaning, you should want regular families to have access to homeownership,” Haney said. “Maybe this is one of the rare issues where there’s broad agreement across political stripes, and we can actually solve a problem.”
A different bill addressing institutional investors, AB 1240, took a different approach. Introduced by Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-San José), it looked to ban investors that own at least 1,000 single-family properties from buying more homes in order to rent them out.
Nine companies own more than 1,000 single-family homes in California. The largest is Invitation Homes, which owns more than 11,000 homes in the state and has faced a litany of lawsuits related to unpermitted renovations, unfair eviction practices and withheld security deposits.
Lee’s bill passed the state Assembly last year but stalled after fierce opposition from real estate agents and the California Apartment Assn. It awaits a Senate committee hearing.
SALEM — Salem City Councilors expressed support for the intent of a proposal to increase fines for failing to clear snow and ice from sidewalks, but said that more discussion is necessary to ensure that enforcement actually results in increased sidewalk access.
The change, proposed by Mayor Dominick Pangallo, would amend city ordinances so that owners of residential properties would be fined $100 a day for neglecting to remove snow and/or ice from sidewalks, and owners of commercial property would be charged $200 each day to encourage compliance.
This page requires Javascript.
Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.
Downtown Los Angeles’ infamous eyesore is one step closer to being cleaned out.
The skyscraper known as the Graffiti Towers — officially the Oceanwide Plaza development — has reached a bankruptcy exit agreement that paves the way for a potential sale, court records show.
A federal bankruptcy judge on Tuesday signed an order approving the agreement, which was filed on Jan. 28 and resolves various disputes between creditors.
Lawyers for Oceanwide argued in the Jan. 28 court filing that the agreement would put an end to “value-destructive litigation” and allow Oceanwide to focus on selling the project and confirming a plan.
“A prompt sale and eventual completion of the Project is a major priority for the City and the public at large, particularly with the upcoming 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles,” Oceanwide’s lawyers wrote.
The settlement is a “critical step” toward selling the property, which will allow for the “permanent removal” of graffiti and “permanent elimination of safety concerns at the Property,” they continued.
The real estate broker managing the sale, Mark Tarczynski of Colliers, declined to comment.
A potential investor is in talks to acquire the property, but the deal depends on the bankruptcy being resolved, as reported by Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources.
The settlement agreement resolves various legal battles between creditors over the order that they get repaid in, sets the amounts of the claims and provides a “framework for a consensual chapter 11 plan and sale, and a distribution waterfall for the proceeds from a sale.”
Under the agreement, L.A. Downtown Investment LP will receive a $230-million claim, while the “mechanics” liens — which are typically associated with unpaid construction work and are held by Lendlease (US) Construction Inc. and DTLA Funding LLC — total $168 million.
The agreement also includes a $20-million payment from Lendlease (US) Construction Inc. to Chicago Title Insurance Co. to resolve disputes between the two companies.
Oceanwide Plaza, located across Figueroa Street from Crypto.com Arena and on the site of a former event parking lot, was once envisioned as a crown jewel of downtown Los Angeles.
The Chinese-backed, mixed-use development project would have included more than 500 condos and 180 hotel rooms across three towers. It would have also included nearly 170,000 square feet of shops and restaurants.
“The draw power of this location is tremendous. We’re in the heart of the entertainment and sports district,” Thomas Feng, then-chief executive of Oceanwide’s American subsidiary, told The Times in 2016.
The $1-billion development started in 2015 and was originally slated to be completed in 2019. But construction stalled in January 2019 as the owner — the publicly traded, Beijing-based conglomerate Oceanwide Holdings — ran out of money to pay contractors.
As the luxury building sat vacant, taggers armed with spray paint flocked there, hoping to leave a colorful mark on the city skyline. Some even filmed themselves walking on ledges of the unfinished skyscrapers.
In 2024, the Los Angeles City Council allocated $3.8 million to clean up and secure the building. About $2.7 million was allocated for security services, fire safety upgrades and graffiti abatement. Another $1.1 million was set aside to build fences and secure the ground floors of the building.
Oceanwide Holdings also planned to build two skyscrapers in San Francisco’s Financial District, but construction halted in 2020 after the company ran out of money, the San Francisco Chronicle has reported.
China Oceanwide Holdings was delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last year.
A Brentwood couple is suing the city of Los Angeles and Mayor Karen Bass, claiming their constitutional rights were violated when city officials blocked them from demolishing the home where Marilyn Monroe died in 1962.
In a 37-page complaint that accuses the city of collusion and bias, the lawsuit filed by homeowners Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank claims L.A. “deprived Plaintiffs of their intended demolition of the house and the use and enjoyment of their Property without any actual benefit to the public.”
It’s yet another chapter in a saga surrounding the fate of the famous property, which began in 2023 when Milstein, a wealthy real estate heiress, and Bank, a reality TV producer with credits including “The Apprentice” and “Survivor,” bought the home for $8.35 million. They own the property next door and hoped to tear down Monroe’s place to expand their estate.
The pair quickly obtained demolition permits from the Department of Building and Safety, but once their plans became public, an outcry erupted. A legion of historians, Angelenos and Monroe fans claimed the 1920s haunt, where the actor died in 1962, is an indelible piece of the city’s history.
Councilmember Traci Park, who represents L.A.’s 11th Council District where the home is located, said she received hundreds of calls and emails urging her to protect it. In September 2023, she held a news conference dressed as Monroe — bright red lipstick, bobbing blond hair — urging the City Council to declare it a landmark.
The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission started the landmark application process in January 2024, barring the owners from destroying the house in the meantime. L.A. City Council unanimously voted to designate it as a historic cultural monument a few months later, officially saving it from destruction.
It’s not the first legal challenge brought by Milstein and Bank. The pair sued the city in 2024, accusing the city of “backdoor machinations” in preserving a house that doesn’t deserve to be a historic cultural monument.
An L.A. Superior Court Judge threw out the suit in September 2025, calling it “an ill-disguised motion to win so they can demolish the home.”
The latest lawsuit includes a variety of damages, claiming the property’s monument status has turned it into a tourist attraction, bringing trespassers who leap over the walls surrounding the property. In November, burglars broke into the home searching for memorabilia, the suit alleges.
The lawsuit accuses the city of taking no efforts to stop trespassers and failing to compensate the owners for their loss of use and enjoyment of the property. It also notes that the homeowners offered to pay to relocate the home, but the city ignored them.
An aerial view of the house in Brentwood where Marilyn Monroe died is seen on July 26, 2002.
(Mel Bouzad / Getty Images)
The feud has stirred up a larger conversation on what exactly is worth protecting in Southern California, a region loaded with architectural marvels and Old Hollywood haunts swirling with celebrity legend and gossip.
Fans claim the house, located on 5th Helena Drive, is too iconic to be torn down. Monroe bought it for $75,000 in 1962 and died there six months later, the only home she ever owned by herself. The phrase “Cursum Perficio” — Latin for “The journey ends here” — was adorned in tile on the front porch, adding to the property’s lore.
Milstein and Bank claim it has been remodeled so many times over the years, with 14 different owners and more than a dozen renovation permits issued over the last 60 years, that it bears no resemblance to its former self. Some Brentwood locals consider it a nuisance because fans and tour buses flock to the address for pictures, even though the only thing visible from the street is the privacy wall.
“There is not a single piece of the house that includes any physical evidence that Ms. Monroe ever spent a day at the house, not a piece of furniture, not a paint chip, not a carpet, nothing,” their previous lawsuit claimed.
With their latest lawsuit, Milstein and Bank are seeking a court order allowing them to demolish the house and compensation for the decline in property value after the city’s decision to declare it a monument.
Kanye West, the rapper now known as Ye, is suing his former project manager and his lawyers, alleging they wrongfully put a $1.8-million lien on his former Malibu mansion.
The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday, alleges that Tony Saxon, Ye’s former project manager on the property, and the law firm West Coast Trial Lawyers, “wrongfully” placed an “invalid” lien on the property “while simultaneously launching an aggressive publicity campaign designed to pressure Ye, chill prospective transactions, and extract payment on disputed claims already being litigated in court.”
Saxon’s lawyers were not immediately available for comment.
Saxon, who was also employed as West’s security guard and caretaker at the Malibu property, sued the controversial rapper in Los Angeles Superior Court in September 2023, claiming a slate of labor violations, nonpayment of services and disability discrimination.
In January 2024, Saxon placed the $1.8-million “mechanics” lien on the property in order to secure compensation for his work as project manager and construction-related services, according to court filings.
A mechanics lien, also referred to as a contractor’s lien, is usually filed by an unpaid contractor, laborer or supplier, as a hold against the property. If the party remains unpaid, it can prompt a foreclosure sale of the property to secure compensation.
Ye has denied Saxon’s allegations. In a November 2023 response to the complaint, Ye disputed that Saxon “has sustained any injury, damage, or loss by reason of any act, omission or breach by Defendant.”
According to Ye’s recent complaint, he listed the property for sale in December 2023. A month later, he alleged, Saxon and his attorneys recorded the lien and “immediately” issued statements to the media.
The suit cites a statement Saxon’s attorney, Ronald Zambrano, made to Business Insider: “If someone wants to buy Kanye’s Malibu home, they will have to deal with us first. That sale cannot happen without Tony getting paid first.”
“These statements were designed to create public pressure and to interfere with the Plaintiffs’ ability to sell and finance the Property by falsely conveying that Defendants held an adjudicated, enforceable right to block a transaction and divert sale proceeds,” the complaint states.
The filing contends that last year the Los Angeles Superior Court granted Ye’s motion to release the lien from the bond and awarded him attorneys fees.
The Malibu property’s short existence has a long history of legal and financial drama.
In 2021, West purchased the beachfront concrete mansion — designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando — for $57.3 million. He then gutted the property on Malibu Road, reportedly saying “This is going to be my bomb shelter. This is going to be my Batcave.”
Three years later, the hip-hop star sold the unfinished mansion (he had removed the windows, doors, electricity and plumbing and broke down walls), at a significant loss to developer Steven Belmont’s Belwood Investments for $21 million.
Belmont, who spent more money to renovate the home, had spent three years in prison after being charged with attempted murder for a pitchfork attack in Napa County. He promised to restore the architectural jewel to its former glory.
However, the property has been mired in various legal and financial entanglements including foreclosure threats.
Last August, the notorious mansion was once again put on the market with a $4.1 million price cut after a previous offer reportedly fell through, according to Realtor.com.
The legal battle surrounding Ye’s former Malibu pad is the latest in a series of public and legal dramas that the music impresario has been involved in recent years.
In 2022, the mercurial superstar lost numerous lucrative partnerships with companies like Adidas and the Gap, following a raft of antisemitic statements, including declaring himself a Nazi on X (which he later recanted).
Two years later, Ye abruptly shut down Donda Academy, the troubled private school he founded in 2020.
Ye, the school and some of his affiliated businesses faced faced multiple lawsuits from former employees and educators, alleging they were victims of wrongful termination, a hostile work environment and other claims.
In court filings, Ye has denied each of the claims made against him by former employees and educators at Donda.
The 120-year-old Craftsman home in the middle of the Hollywood Center Motel had survived earthquakes, flooding, riots, a murder investigation and the raucous force of the rock-n-roll era.
But in the early hours of Sunday, the historic motel once frequented by Neil Young and Crazy Horse turned to ashes as people illegally sheltering in the home rushed to flee the burning building on Sunset Boulevard.
“It’s a gut punch for Hollywood preservation,” said local historian Brian Curran, who recently submitted an application for the house to be designated a historic-cultural monument.
Last month, the city of L.A.’s Cultural Heritage Commission voted to move forward with consideration of such a designation. This week, commissioners were scheduled to visit the site.
But now it’s too late to save the 1905 home featured in “L.A. Confidential” and “The Rockford Files.”
“The real tragedy is that this building had been left vacant and it no longer had any kind of purpose, so it became a magnet for transients,” said Curran, who serves as co-chair of Hollywood Heritage’s Preservation Committee. “If you go look at it now, it is essentially a pile of crushed wood that has been sprayed with fire retardant.”
The Los Angeles Fire Department responded to reports of a trash fire at 4:30 a.m. Sunday. There, they discovered the boarded-up Craftsman-style house engulfed in flames and heard voices yelling for help.
Crews used a ladder to rescue a 42-year-old man who had broken through the windows on the second floor in an effort to flee the blaze. He was transported to the hospital in stable condition while 70 firefighters worked to extinguish the stubborn fire.
A fire crew aims hoses at the fully engulfed historic motel on Sunset Boulevard.
(Los Angeles Fire Department)
Transients taking shelter inside the home had been a persistent problem since the property was foreclosed on and vacated in late 2024, said Athena Novak, a representative for the owner, Andranik Sogoyan. The owner repeatedly tried to seal off the building, but steel wire cutters were used to cut through the fences on multiple occasions, she said.
“The owner, of course, was reinforcing it the best he could,” she said. “He had a maintenance man going there all the time. The maintenance man was attacked a few times with weapons.”
Two smaller fires had already occurred recently at the property, on Sept. 15 and Oct. 19, which made the monument effort even more urgent, Curran said.
Hollywood Heritage, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving neighborhood history, mourned the loss of the motel in a statement Sunday.
“The building could readily have been painted and preserved to serve in an adaptive re-use capacity as a gem in the community,” said the organization. “By allowing its decay and neglect we again see rare historic buildings lost which were eminently restorable.”
The organization was scheduled to host a webinar Wednesday evening highlighting the history of the motel. Now the event will continue as a tribute to the motel and a discussion of strategies to stop the loss of historic properties to neglect.
“We are absolutely crushed and sick that this could happen,” Curran said, “and afraid that this is going to be a pattern.”
Almost exactly a year ago, another rock-era institution — the 111-year-old Morrison Hotel, featured on the cover of the Doors’ fifth studio album — was engulfed in flames after a series of smaller fires. Local merchants reported that unhoused individuals would often sleep inside the building.
The 1905 home was completely destroyed in the blaze Sunday, the same week that city officials were set to the visit the site as they considered monument status.
(Hollywood Heritage)
The 1905 home that formerly served as the centerpiece of the Hollywood Center Motel was originally the home of William and Sarah Avery, who affectionately referred to it as “El Nido,” meaning the nest. In 2019, it was identified in the citywide survey of historic resources as a rare example of Shingle architecture that predates Hollywood’s consolidation with the city of Los Angeles.
“The house exemplifies many of the characteristics of the Shingle Style including: asymmetrical façade, picturesque massing, dominant front facing gable, multiple gables and dormers, overhanging eaves, covered porch, second story balcony, differing wall textures, oriel windows,” the application states.
Six smaller buildings were later constructed on the property, and the structures collectively became the Hollywood Center Motel, which opened in 1956, according to the monument application.
The motel was a magnet for rock-and-rollers and folk artists seeking affordable housing close to the bustling Hollywood music scene. The band Buffalo Springfield took up residence in the 1960s, and Neil Young returned to the site in the 1970s with his band Crazy Horse, according to reporting from SF Gate.
File photograph of the Hollywood Motel located on the 6700 block of Sunset Blvd in Hollywood.
(Hollywood Heritage)
The neon signs and classic sleazy-motel look also made it a popular filming site for TV crime shows such as “Perry Mason” and “T.J. Hooker.” Then in 1986 it became the scene of a real crime — the murder investigation of Richard Mayer, whose body was found stuffed in a suitcase at the motel.
The worn-down motel closed its doors in 2018, at which point the former owner and a handful of long-term tenants continued to occupy the property, Curran said. It was foreclosed on and vacated in late 2024.
In early 2025, the new owner submitted demolition permits to destroy the structures. This hastened Hollywood Heritage’s effort to secure monument status and preserve the 1905 home.
Sogoyan said the owner was fully supportive of the monument effort and ready to comply with measures to redevelop the property around the historic home, should the designation have been granted.
The motel’s loss is felt not only by history buffs but also local residents accustomed to walking by the iconic site on a daily basis, Curran said.
Though the state of California has certain squatters rights, it’s doubtful they apply to the many black bears roaming Los Angeles County — and according to a man in Altadena, one of them decided to move into his crawlspace and has refused to leave for several months.Now, he’s accusing the California Department of Fish and Wildlife of leaving him to deal with the enormous creature on his own, and plans to sue, KTLA-TV reported Sunday.According to 63-year-old Ken Johnson, the bear moved in just before Thanksgiving, and has wreaked havoc on his property ever since, the outlet said. “I can hear the plastic being shredded underneath, and one of the cameras picked it up just bulldozing through it. It’s a mess under there,” Johnson told the outlet. At first, CDFW set a bear trap near the crawl space, but allegedly abandoned further plans to help after accidentally capturing the wrong bear, KTLA said. Just when biologists started using air horns to force the bear out — and appeared to make some progress — they were ordered to cease operations, Johnson told the publication. “I felt very defeated. I just dropped. Now what? It’s all up to me, and I’m supposed to watch my phone when he comes out in the middle of the night? Or sleep in the kitchen and listen for him every night?” Ever since LA County was ravaged by the Eaton Fire in January, several bears have taken residence in evacuated homes, the Associated Press previously reported, including an enormous bear that had been lounging by a man’s pool and bringing food back into the crawl space at night. Though temperatures in Southern California are too warm for most bears to hibernate, they’re known to shack up below people’s homes for shelter. In January, a CDFW team spent nearly a full day removing a 525-pound bear from another home in Altadena, the department said in a previous social media post. After capturing it with a trap, officials tagged it and released it into the wild. “In the foothills of bear country, it’s important to close crawl spaces with bear-proof material in advance of winter months to discourage bears from denning and damaging property,” CDFW wrote on social media following the incident.“Despite very limited staff, CDFW biologists have been in constant communication with this homeowner since this bear was reported entering his unsecured crawlspace in November,” department representatives told SFGATE in a statement Monday.“We remain committed to helping this homeowner and have never indicated otherwise,” they continued, adding that they’ve set up traps and cameras and attempted to haze the bear from the property.“CDFW has and will continue to engage with the homeowner to advise on hazing methodologies and the critical need to close the crawlspace, monitor cameras, and offer support to help ensure the bear leaves the crawlspace and finds more suitable habitat,” they said.But, according to Johnson, it’s still unclear when his unwanted roommate will vacate. After one of the cameras on his property captured an image of a broken pipe, he turned off his gas, he told the outlet. As a result, he hasn’t taken a hot shower since around Christmas Eve. “I’m just exhausted from the whole thing,” he said.“I get my mind off it for a little bit, and then suddenly I get flooded back with, oh that’s right, I can’t take a hot shower. I’ve got to monitor the situation all the time,” Johnson said.
Though the state of California has certain squatters rights, it’s doubtful they apply to the many black bears roaming Los Angeles County — and according to a man in Altadena, one of them decided to move into his crawlspace and has refused to leave for several months.
Now, he’s accusing the California Department of Fish and Wildlife of leaving him to deal with the enormous creature on his own, and plans to sue, KTLA-TV reported Sunday.
According to 63-year-old Ken Johnson, the bear moved in just before Thanksgiving, and has wreaked havoc on his property ever since, the outlet said. “I can hear the plastic being shredded underneath, and one of the cameras picked it up just bulldozing through it. It’s a mess under there,” Johnson told the outlet.
At first, CDFW set a bear trap near the crawl space, but allegedly abandoned further plans to help after accidentally capturing the wrong bear, KTLA said. Just when biologists started using air horns to force the bear out — and appeared to make some progress — they were ordered to cease operations, Johnson told the publication.
“I felt very defeated. I just dropped. Now what? It’s all up to me, and I’m supposed to watch my phone when he comes out in the middle of the night? Or sleep in the kitchen and listen for him every night?”
“In the foothills of bear country, it’s important to close crawl spaces with bear-proof material in advance of winter months to discourage bears from denning and damaging property,” CDFW wrote on social media following the incident.
“Despite very limited staff, CDFW biologists have been in constant communication with this homeowner since this bear was reported entering his unsecured crawlspace in November,” department representatives told SFGATE in a statement Monday.
“We remain committed to helping this homeowner and have never indicated otherwise,” they continued, adding that they’ve set up traps and cameras and attempted to haze the bear from the property.
“CDFW has and will continue to engage with the homeowner to advise on hazing methodologies and the critical need to close the crawlspace, monitor cameras, and offer support to help ensure the bear leaves the crawlspace and finds more suitable habitat,” they said.
But, according to Johnson, it’s still unclear when his unwanted roommate will vacate. After one of the cameras on his property captured an image of a broken pipe, he turned off his gas, he told the outlet. As a result, he hasn’t taken a hot shower since around Christmas Eve.
“I’m just exhausted from the whole thing,” he said.
“I get my mind off it for a little bit, and then suddenly I get flooded back with, oh that’s right, I can’t take a hot shower. I’ve got to monitor the situation all the time,” Johnson said.
The primary federal contractor entrusted with purging fire debris from the Eaton and Palisades fires may have illegally dumped toxic ash and misused contaminated soil in breach of state policy, according to federal government reports recently obtained by The Times.
The records depict harried disaster workers appearing to take dangerous shortcuts that could leave hazardous pollution and endanger thousands of survivors poised to return to these communities.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers allocated $60 million to hire personnel to monitor daily cleanup operations and document any health and safety risks. The Times obtained thousands of government oversight reports that detail these federal efforts to rid fire-destroyed homes of toxic debris between February and mid-May.
The records, which were obtained on a rolling basis over several months, include dozens of instances in which oversight personnel flagged workers for disregarding cleanup procedures in a way that likely spread toxic substances.
The latest batch of reports — turned over to The Times on Dec. 1 — contained allegations of improper actions involving Environmental Chemical Corp., the primary federal contractor, and the dozens of debris-removal crews it supervised.
For example, on April 30, federally hired workers were clearing fire debris from a burned-down home in the Palisades burn scar. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, after the last dump truck left, an official with Environmental Chemical Corp., a Burlingame, Calif., company hired to carry out the federal debris removal mission, ordered workers to move the remaining ash and debris to a neighboring property.
The crew used construction equipment to move four or five “buckets” worth of fire debris onto the neighboring property. It’s unclear if that property was also destroyed in the Palisades fire, and, if so, whether it had been already remediated.
“I questioned if this was allowable and then the crew dumped material into the excavator bucket and planned to move it on the lowboy with material in bucket,” a federal supervisor wrote in a report intended to track performance of contractors. “Don’t think this is allowed.”
According to the report, the workers also left glass, ash and other fire debris on the property the crew had been clearing, because they “were in a rush to get to the next site.”
Experts who reviewed the reports said the behavior described may amount to illegal dumping under California law. Other reports obtained by The Times describe federal cleanup workers, on multiple occasions, using ash-contaminated soil to backfill holes and smooth out uneven portions of fire-destroyed properties in the Palisades burn scar. If that were true, it would be a breach of state policy that says contaminated soil from areas undergoing environmental cleanup cannot be used in this way.
The reports also cite multiple occasions where workers walked through already cleared properties with dirty boot covers, possibly re-contaminating them. The inspectors also reported crews spraying contaminated pool water onto neighboring properties and into storm drains, and excavator operators using toothed buckets that caused clean and contaminated soil to be commingled.
“Obviously, there was some really good work done,” state Sen. Ben Allen (D-Pacific Palisades) said about the federal cleanup. “But it appears that we’ve got some folks who are knowingly breaking the law and cutting corners in their cleanup protocol.
“We’ve got to figure out how widespread this was, and anybody who was responsible for having broken a law in this area needs to be held accountable.”
The Army Corps did not respond to requests for comment. An ECC executive said that without information such as the properties’ addresses or parcel numbers, he could not verify whether the accusations made in the oversight reports were substantiated by the companies’ own investigations or if any issues raised by the inspectors were resolved. Such specifics were redacted in the version of the reports sent to The Times.
“At a high level, ECC does not authorize the placement of wildfire debris or ash on neighboring properties, does not permit the use of contaminated material as fill, and operates under continuous [Army Corps] oversight,” said Glenn Sweatt, ECC’s vice president of contracts and compliance.
Between February and September, the Army Corps responded to nearly 1,100 public complaints or other inquiries related to the federal fire cleanup. Over 20% of grievances were related to quality of work, according to the Army Corps assessment of complaints.
Some of these complaints point to the same concerns raised by the inspectors. For example, a resident in the Eaton burn scar filed a complaint on June 19 that “crews working on adjacent properties moved fire debris and ash onto his property after he specifically asked them not to.”
Other property owners in Altadena filed complaints that crews had left all sorts of fire debris on their property — in some cases, buried in the ground.
The Army Corps or ECC ordered crews to go back and finish up the debris removal for some properties. Other times, the officials left the work and costs to disaster victims.
A Palisades property owner complained on May 7 that after the Army Corps supposedly completed cleaning his property, he found “parts of broken foundation [that] were buried to avoid full removal.” He said it cost him $40,000 to hire a private contractor to gather up and dispose of several dumpsters of busted-up concrete.
James Mayfield, a hazardous materials specialist and owner of Mayfield Environmental Engineering, was hired by more than 200 homeowners affected by the fires to remove debris and contaminated soil — including, in some cases, from properties already cleared by Army Corps contractors.
When Mayfield and his workers excavated additional soil from Army Corps-cleared properties, he said they occasionally uncovered ash, slabs of burned stucco, and other debris.
“All you have to do is scoop and you can see the rest of the house underneath the ground,” Mayfield said. “It was never cleared at all.”
After January’s wildfires, local health authorities warned the soil could be riddled with harmful pollutants from burned-down homes and cars, including lead, a heavy metal that can cause irreversible brain damage when inhaled or ingested by young children.
Soil testing has been standard practice after major wildfires in California since 2007. Typically, after work crews clear away fire debris and several inches of topsoil from burned-down homes, federal or state disaster officials arrange for the same contractors to test the soil for lingering contamination. If they find contamination above state benchmarks, they are required to excavate another layer of that soil and conduct additional rounds of testing.
But the aftermath of the Eaton and Palisades fires has been different. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has repeatedly refused to pay for soil testing in California, insisting the practice is not necessary to remove any immediate threats after the fires. The Newsom administration unsuccessfully petitioned FEMA to reconsider conducting soil testing to protect returning residents and workers. But as pressure mounted on the state to fund soil testing, the California Environmental Protection Agency secretary downplayed public health risks from fire contamination.
Indeed, the vast majority of wildfire cleanups in California are managed by state agencies. Since the January wildfires, California officials have been noticeably guarded when questioned about how the state will respond when the next major wildfire inevitably strikes.
Asked whether the state will continue to adhere to its long-standing post-fire soil sampling protocols, the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services wouldn’t directly answer whether it would pay for soil testing after future wildfires. Its director, Nancy Ward, declined to be interviewed.
“California has the most advanced testing systems in the nation, and we remain committed to advocating for the safe, timely removal of debris after a wildfire,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement. “Protecting public health and the well-being of impacted communities remains the state’s foremost priority.”
Some environmental experts and lawmakers worry that abandoning long-established wildfire protocols, like soil testing, may set a precedent where disaster victims will assume more costs and work to ensure that their properties are safe to return to and rebuild upon.
U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D–Los Angeles) called for the Army Corps to review the results of large-scale soil testing initiatives, including data from USC, to determine which contractors were assigned to clean properties where heavy contamination persists. Such an analysis, he said, might help the federal government figure out which contractors performed poor work, so that they they aren’t hired in future disasters.
“I’m going to press the Army Corps to look at where the testing indicates there was still contaminants and who is the contractor for that, to see whether there are certain contractors that had a high failure rate,” Sherman said.
“I want to make sure they’re … evaluating these contractors vis-à-vis the next disaster,” he added. “And, ultimately it’s in the testing.”
Throughout much of Altadena and Pacific Palisades, thousands of empty lots are awaiting permits to rebuild. But many property owners fear the possibility of contamination.
The Department of Angels, a community-led nonprofit formed after the January wildfires, surveyed 2,300 residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed by the Eaton and Palisades blazes. About one-third of respondents said they wanted testing but had not received it.
“The government abandoned testing and left us on our own,” one victim wrote. “We have each had to find out what is the best route to test and remediate, but without standardization and consistency, we are a giant experiment.”
A pro-housing group sued Gov. Newsom on Wednesday over his decision to restrict SB 9, a housing law that allows owners to parcel up their properties, in the wake of the January fires.
YIMBY Law, a San Francisco-based organization, alleges that Newsom’s executive order over the summer allowing cities to suspend SB 9 is a constitutional overreach and violates the California Emergency Services Act, which states that emergency powers can only be used to mitigate ongoing disasters, not potential ones.
It’s the latest chapter in the fight over how much density should be allowed in the rebuilding of fire-stricken communities such as Altadena and Pacific Palisades.
Proponents of SB 9, a 2021 state law that allows homeowners to split single-family lots into as many as four properties, claim it’s a valuable tool to address the housing crisis by adding density. They also claim it’s a resource for fire victims hoping to sell their properties, since land that can be subdivided is more valuable than a single-family lot.
Critics claim that the density afforded by SB 9 would destroy the character of single-family neighborhoods, while also slowing down evacuations in fire-prone areas by packing in more homes and residents.
Newsom sided with the critics in July, signing an executive order allowing L.A.-area governments to suspend SB 9. Many took him up on the offer immediately, including Mayor Bass, as well as officials in Pasadena, Malibu and L.A. County. All are named in the lawsuit along with Gov. Newsom.
“SB 9 adds housing and flexibility,” said YIMBY Law executive director Sonja Trauss. “We want everyone to be able to rebuild, but suspending SB 9 devalues those properties.”
Trauss said many fire victims are underinsured and currently deciding whether it’s financially possible to rebuild. For many, a helpful option would be to use SB 9 to divide the lot into two, then sell one and use the money to build on the other.
She added that the move seemed out of step with Gov. Newsom’s other initiatives in the wake of the fires, including streamlining the permitting process for single-family homes and ADUs.
“If you want to build a 3,000-square-foot house and a 700-square-foot ADU, it’s easier. But if you want to build two homes as a duplex, it’s harder,” Trauss said. “It’s baffling.”
A spokesperson for Newsom defended the move in a statement.
“We will not allow outside groups — even longstanding allies — to attack the Palisades, and communities in the highest fire risk areas throughout L.A. County, or undermine local flexibility after the horror of these fires,” said spokesperson Tara Gallegos. “Our obligation is to survivors, full stop. We will not negotiate that away. If defending them requires drawing firm lines, we will draw them.”
The suit was originally supposed to be filed on Monday, Dec. 8, but was delayed after potential movement from Newsom’s office to restore SB 9 in fire areas, a spokesperson for YIMBY Law said.
An agreement was never reached, and the suit was filed on Wednesday.
As the Eaton and Palisades fires rapidly jumped between tightly packed houses, the proactive steps some residents took to retrofit their homes with fire-resistant building materials and to clear flammable brush became a significant indicator of a home’s fate.
Early adopters who cleared vegetation and flammable materials within the first five feet of their houses’ walls — in line with draft rules for the state’s hotly debated “zone zero” regulations — fared better than those who didn’t, an on-the-ground investigation from the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety published Wednesday found.
Over a week in January, while the fires were still burning, the insurance team inspected more than 250 damaged, destroyed and unscathed homes in Altadena and Pacific Palisades.
On properties where the majority of zone zero land was covered in vegetation and flammable materials, the fires destroyed 27% of homes; On properties with less than a quarter of zone zero covered, only 9% were destroyed.
The Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, an independent research nonprofit funded by the insurance industry, performed similar investigations for Colorado’s 2012 Waldo Canyon fire, Hawaii’s 2023 Lahaina fire and California’s Tubbs, Camp and Woolsey fires of 2017 and 2018.
While a handful of recent studies have found homes with sparse vegetation in zone zero were more likely to survive fires, skeptics say it does not yet amount to a scientific consensus.
Travis Longcore, senior associate director and an adjunct professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, cautioned that the insurance nonprofit’s results are only exploratory: The team did not analyze whether other factors, such as the age of the homes, were influencing their zone zero analysis, and how the nonprofit characterizes zone zero for its report, he noted, does not exactly mirror California’s draft regulations.
Meanwhile, Michael Gollner, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley who studies how wildfires destroy and damage homes, noted that the nonprofit’s sample does not perfectly represent the entire burn areas, since the group focused specifically on damaged properties and were constrained by the active firefight.
Nonetheless, the nonprofit’s findings help tie together growing evidence of zone zero’s effectiveness from tests in the lab — aimed at identifying the pathways fire can use to enter a home — with the real-world analyses of which measures protected homes in wildfires, Gollner said.
A recent study from Gollner looking at more than 47,000 structures in five major California fires (which did not include the Eaton and Palisades fires) found that of the properties that removed vegetation from zone zero, 37% survived, compared with 20% that did not.
Once a fire spills from the wildlands into an urban area, homes become the primary fuel. When a home catches fire, it increases the chance nearby homes burn, too. That is especially true when homes are tightly packed.
When looking at California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection data for the entirety of the two fires, the insurance team found that “hardened” homes in Altadena and the Palisades that had noncombustable roofs, fire-resistant siding, double-pane windows and closed eaves survived undamaged at least 66% of the time, if they were at least 20 feet away from other structures.
But when the distance was less than 10 feet, only 45% of the hardened homes escaped with no damage.
“The spacing between structures, it’s the most definitive way to differentiate what survives and what doesn’t,” said Roy Wright, president and chief executive of the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety. At the same time, said Wright, “it’s not feasible to change that.”
Looking at steps that residents are more likely to be able to take, the insurance nonprofit found that the best approach is for homeowners to apply however many home hardening and defensible space measures that they can. Each one can shave a few percentage points off the risk of a home burning, and combined, the effect can be significant.
As for zone zero, the insurance team found a number of examples of how vegetation and flammable materials near a home could aid the destruction of a property.
At one home, embers appeared to have ignited some hedges a few feet away from the structure. That heat was enough to shatter a single pane window, creating the perfect opportunity for embers to enter and burn the house from the inside out. It miraculously survived.
At others, embers from the blazes landed on trash and recycling bins close to the houses, sometimes burning holes through the plastic lids and igniting the material inside. In one instance, the fire in the bin spread to a nearby garage door, but the house was spared.
Wooden decks and fences were also common accomplices that helped embers ignite a structure.
California’s current zone zero draft regulations take some of those risks into account. They prohibit wooden fences within the first five feet of a home; the state’s zone zero committee is also considering whether to prohibit virtually all vegetation in the zone or to just limit it (regardless, well-maintained trees are allowed).
On the other hand, the draft regulations do not prohibit keeping trash bins in the zone, which the committee determined would be difficult to enforce. They also do not mandate homeowners replace wooden decks.
The controversy around the draft regulations center around the proposal to remove virtually all healthy vegetation, including shrubs and grasses, from the zone.
Critics argue that, given the financial burden zone zero would place on homeowners, the state should instead focus on measures with lower costs and a significant proven benefit.
“A focus on vegetation is misguided,” said David Lefkowith, president of the Mandeville Canyon Assn.
At its most recent zone zero meeting, the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection directed staff to further research the draft regulations’ affordability.
“As the Board and subcommittee consider which set of options best balance safety, urgency, and public feasibility, we are also shifting our focus to implementation and looking to state leaders to identify resources for delivering on this first-in-the-nation regulation,” Tony Andersen, executive officer of the board, said in a statement. “The need is urgent, but we also want to invest the time necessary to get this right.”
Home hardening and defensible space are just two of many strategies used to protect lives and property. The insurance team suspects that many of the close calls they studied in the field — homes that almost burned but didn’t — ultimately survived thanks to firefighters who stepped in. Wildfire experts also recommend programs to prevent ignitions in the first place and to manage wildlands to prevent intense spread of a fire that does ignite.
For Wright, the report is a reminder of the importance of community. The fate of any individual home is tied to that of those nearby — it takes a whole neighborhood hardening their homes and maintaining their lawns to reach herd immunity protection against fire’s contagious spread.
“When there is collective action, it changes the outcomes,” Wright said. “Wildfire is insidious. It doesn’t stop at the fence line.”
In the architectural age of minimalism and millennial gray, a wild and whimsical antidote made of old clinker bricks and jumbled shingles sits on a quiet street at the edge of L.A. and Culver City.
Formally, the spellbinding property is named the Lawrence and Martha Joseph Residence and Apartments, named after the Disney artist and his wife who obsessively spent three decades building it. But locals call them the Hobbit Houses — fitting, since they look straight out of a J.R.R. Tolkien novel.
The complex looks comically out of place amid Culver City’s commercial corridor along Venice Boulevard. It’s surrounded by modern apartment buildings, boxy and inoffensive, built to blend in with today’s taste.
A bathroom in one of the Hobbit houses in Culver City adorned in glass tiles and ornate fixtures.
Amid that urban blur, the Hobbit Houses beg for your attention.
An electric lamppost flickers, mimicking fire. The tree in the front yard features a face, with eyes and a nose. The homes are filled with quirky leaded glass windows, uneven angles and heaps of wood shingles, resembling a thatched straw roof.
This year, the property hit the market for the first time. Offers poured in, and it sold to perhaps the most fitting possible buyer outside Bilbo Baggins himself: real estate agent Michael Libow.
At $1.88 million, Libow didn’t have the highest bid. His main qualification was that he owns and lives in one of the finest examples of Storyboook style in the region: the Witch’s House, a medieval-looking masterpiece that is more befitting a “Hansel and Gretel” adaptation than the streets of Beverly Hills.
The broker, seeing his connection to the style, promoted Libow to the seller, an out-of-state bank trust. The Hobbit Houses were his.
Michael Libow peers through a heavy wooden door of a Hobbit house that he purchased in early 2025.
“It’s like a companion piece to my own home,” Libow said. “It’s a little oasis in a city that’s been overdeveloped.”
Now that he owns both, Libow has declared himself, tongue-in-cheek, the “King of Storybook,” and said he intends to protect the property and be a spokesperson for the style.
“This is my legacy: bringing a little bit of joy to as many people as I can,” he said. “It’s about preservation, but it’s also about bringing a sense of awe and wonder to the world.”
The Hobbit Houses are one of Southern California’s finest examples of Storybook architecture, a fantasy style that fittingly emerged in L.A. in the 1920s around the start of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Inspired by cinema setpieces and centuries-old European cottages, architects designed playful homes with turrets and gables on the outside and nooks and crannies on the inside. When done well, the finished product looks lifted from a fairy tale.
A cat digs around on the roof of a Hobbit house in Culver City.
Disney artist Lawrence Joseph built the Hobbit Houses from 1946 to 1970. Over the years, the property developed a lore all its own. He rented out spare units to Hollywood tenants such as actor Nick Nolte and dancer Gwen Verdon, and the place also housed one of the men who kidnapped Frank Sinatra’s son (authorities found most of the ransom money Sinatra paid, $240,000, in one of the units).
Lawrence died in 1991, and his wife, Martha, got to work protecting the property. She obtained landmark status in 1996 and donated an easement to the Los Angeles Conservancy, ensuring that it can’t be remodeled or torn down.
The property, which includes nine units across four buildings, needed some work when he bought it, so Libow and his property manager, Ben Stine, have spent the last few months playing a developer’s version of “Minesweeper,” trying to make small improvements for the tenants — electric work, a tankless water heater — without disrupting anything protected by the L.A. Conservancy easement.
The Hobbit Houses came with a 15-page report detailing all the things protected on the property: not just the buildings themselves, but also the facade, landscape features and the interiors, including the custom furniture that Lawrence carved himself. Even the wallpaper can’t be touched.
“Protections within a structure are very unusual. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Libow said.
Detail of the flooring inside a Hobbit house in Culver City.
That means for renters, much of the furniture is included with the rent. The latest vacant unit — a two-bed, one-bath with a den — includes bar stools and a rocking chair that Lawrence carved.
The house is wrapped in clinker brick, a term for when clay bricks are set too close to the flames when being fired in a kiln, giving them distorted shapes and colors. Such bricks were sometimes trashed in older architectural eras, but these days, they’re prized for the unique look they bring to buildings, and perfectly natural for Middle Earth architecture in Culver City.
Inside, Lawrence’s sailing background shines through with nautical-themed interiors. A ship’s wheel serves as the chandelier, hanging above vertical-grain boat-plank floors that lead to a galley-style kitchen with a curvy bar.
“The idea behind Storybook is to have something fanciful and whimsical, which involves movement rather than rectilinear rooms,” Libow said. “There’s barely a right angle on the entire property. Everything’s amorphous in shape.”
Detail inside a Hobbit house in Culver City.
There are no knobs to be found; doors open with hidden latches and levers. A built-in fold-down desk pops out in the living room. In the master bedroom, a “cat door” slides open to provide easy access for felines that hang around the property.
The nine units range from 200 square feet to 1,200 square feet. The vacant unit, which spans around 1,000 square feet, hit the market a few months ago for $4,500 per month.
It’s a high price for the neighborhood — most two-bedroom apartments nearby fall in the $3,000 range — but interested renters still swarmed.
“These aren’t your typical tenants that need four walls and a sink. We get a lot of people in the creative industry,” Libow said. “You’re renting a lifestyle here.”
Libow said like his own home, which serves as a regular stop for Hollywood tour buses, the Hobbit Houses are a regular resting point for people walking through the neighborhood.
“Construction workers will walk by on their lunch to look at the turtles in the pond. It’s a break from reality, even if just for a minute,” he said.
Michael Libow outside one of his Hobbit houses in Culver City.
Libow and his property manager spend a lot of time on the grounds, looking for projects or small improvements they’re allowed to make under the conservancy. But for Libow, who bought it as a collector’s item as much as an investment, it’s a labor of love.
“It’s not the most functional style of architecture, but it is the coolest,” he said. “It’s weird, but I’m weird myself. I connect with weird.”
The distinctive former headquarters of the Christian media company Trinity Broadcasting Network in Costa Mesa has sold for $44.5 million, clearing the way for new housing.
The purchase of the ornate palazzo-style structure by Meritage Homes was expected after city officials in August approved Meritage’s plan to build 122 townhouses and 20 single-family homes on the site just south of the 405 Freeway.
Trinity, one of the world’s largest religious television networks, sold its Costa Mesa complex in 2017 after describing it as obsolete. The center dates to 1978.
It was most recently owned by Khoshbin Co., a Costa Mesa real estate company that positioned the property as an event venue.
Khoshbin paid $22 million for the six-acre property in 2021, according to real estate data provider CoStar.
“We’ve spent over $1 million improving the site, beautifying it, and I think the neighborhood really enjoys seeing some life [come back] into the property,” Manny Khoshbin told the city Planning Commission last year.
“We’ve been getting a lot of requests for events, weddings and birthdays, because it’s such a beautiful landscape,” he said.
The structure across the freeway from South Coast Plaza on Bear Street will be torn down to make way for the new housing. It has been a subject of fascination for years.
“With its classical columns, mirrors, faux gold and white marble everything, the Trinity compound’s look is ‘Gone With the Wind’ meets Caesars Palace,” The Times wrote in 1998.
“White walls are adorned with gold-framed floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Visitors climb the sweeping white marble stairway and come upon a 15-foot-tall statue of Michael the Archangel, his wings spread, his left foot planted on Satan’s head, hovering over the gilded grandeur,” the Times article said back then.
The gold-painted dome ceiling has a florid original mural of angels that Trinity Broadcasting founder Paul Crouch called “Orange County’s own Sistine Chapel.”
It will take about two years to redevelop the site as housing, Meritage told the city.
Planning commissioners credited Meritage’s plan for providing more housing in Costa Mesa, where 60% of residents rent their dwellings. There is high demand for housing in the coastal city and costs are climbing, the Daily Pilot said.
Meritage will designate seven units for very low-income occupants.
The new complex aims to provide housing for “the missing middle,” a segment of the population looking to move beyond renting but who cannot yet afford single-family homes, by offering townhouses that enable buyers to build equity, then move up the housing pyramid, the Daily Pilot said.
One person is dead and another is injured after a fatal shooting in Sanford on Saturday, according to the Sanford Police Department. SPD responded to a shooting at approximately 3:30 p.m. near 14th Street and Mangoustine Avenue.When they arrived on the scene, officers discovered La-Don Ja Quan Williams, 22, with apparent gunshot wounds.Williams was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after, SPD said.Another person with minor injuries related to the shooting was contacted by officers at a nearby hospital.Sanford police are urging anyone with information about the crime to contact the department or Crimeline at 800-423-TIPS (8477).Calls made to Crimeline can remain anonymous, and tips that lead to solving homicides may be eligible for a cash reward of up to $5,000.CrimelineCrimeline’s mission is to increase the safety of the Central Florida community by assisting law enforcement agencies in removing undesirable individuals from the community, according to its mission statement. >> Call Crimeline at 800-423-TIPS (8477)>> Leave a tip onlineTips that lead to the felony arrest of suspects and/or the recovery of stolen property and drugs may be eligible for cash rewards of up to $1,000. All tips eligible for a reward are paid to tipsters using an anonymous process. Central Florida Crimeline began in July of 1977, originally named Crimewatch, modeled after the first Crime Stoppers program founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Call Crimeline at 800-423-TIPS (8477).
SANFORD, Fla. —
One person is dead and another is injured after a fatal shooting in Sanford on Saturday, according to the Sanford Police Department.
SPD responded to a shooting at approximately 3:30 p.m. near 14th Street and Mangoustine Avenue.
When they arrived on the scene, officers discovered La-Don Ja Quan Williams, 22, with apparent gunshot wounds.
Williams was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after, SPD said.
Another person with minor injuries related to the shooting was contacted by officers at a nearby hospital.
This content is imported from Facebook.
You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
Sanford police are urging anyone with information about the crime to contact the department or Crimeline at 800-423-TIPS (8477).
Calls made to Crimeline can remain anonymous, and tips that lead to solving homicides may be eligible for a cash reward of up to $5,000.
Crimeline
Crimeline’s mission is to increase the safety of the Central Florida community by assisting law enforcement agencies in removing undesirable individuals from the community, according to its mission statement.
Tips that lead to the felony arrest of suspects and/or the recovery of stolen property and drugs may be eligible for cash rewards of up to $1,000. All tips eligible for a reward are paid to tipsters using an anonymous process.
Central Florida Crimeline began in July of 1977, originally named Crimewatch, modeled after the first Crime Stoppers program founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
A hiker clambers across a scorched landscape of ash, his footsteps crunching on charred earth as he peers over a ridge at a burn scar pocked with blackened stumps. Below are thickets of green chaparral and densely packed homes.
Suddenly, he stops. He zooms the camera in to wisps of white smoke rising from the dirt.
“It’s still smoldering,” he whispers — apparently to himself. No firefighters or state park rangers are visible.
The video of smoke on a hillside above Los Angeles’ Pacific Palisades was shot by a local resident above Skull Rock Trailhead at 11:30 a.m on Jan. 2 — nearly 36 hours after the Lachman fire ignited and long after the Los Angeles Fire Department deemed the fire “fully contained.”
The footage is one piece of a puzzle that has been the subject of so much anger, attention and investigation since the January firestorms: What happened between the time L.A. firefighters declared the Lachman fire out and when it rekindled into a catastrophic firestorm that burned huge swaths of Pacific Palisades?
The video could also be key evidence for attorneys working on behalf of thousands who lost their homes against a player that has so far not received much attention.
Ever since federal officials arrested Jonathan Rinderknecht Oct. 8 on suspicion of igniting the Lachman fire — and revealed that embers from that blaze rekindled into the Jan. 7 Palisades fire — LAFD has faced the brunt of criticism for failing to fully extinguish the New Year’s Day fire.
But lawyers representing thousands of Palisades fire victims are also focusing on another target.
They argue the state, which owns Topanga State Park, where the Palisades fire began, did not do enough to monitor the small Jan 1. Lachman brush fire and stop it reigniting six days later into the devastating Palisades fire that killed 12 people and destroyed more than 6,800 structures. Plaintiff attorneys are not alleging the state should have suppressed the fire; instead, they say it failed to make sure the area was secure.
The video, plaintiff attorneys say, corroborates the case they make in a master complaint filed earlier this month: that the state allowed a “dangerous fire condition” to exist on the Lachman burn scar. They allege the state allowed “embers from the Lachman Fire to smolder, rekindle and then re-ignite in dry brush” as the National Weather Service warned of dangerous Santa Ana winds.
California State Parks did not respond to questions on what actions it took to monitor the Lachman burn scar on Topanga State Park in the run-up to the dangerous wind event, or what role it typically plays in monitoring land after fires. It also did not respond to any of the allegations in legal filings or the hiker’s video showing smoke rising.
“California State Parks does not comment on pending litigation,” said a spokesperson for the agency.
Andrew Grinsfelder, 18, waters down the roof of his mother’s home, hoping to prevent the Palisades fire from destroying their house, on Jan. 8.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Government officials typically have limited liability in fires. The legal doctrine of qualified immunity shields public servants from civil litigation, unless their actions violate “clearly established” law, so they can make judgments without constant legal threats and public funds are protected.
California government code specifically prevents public entities and employees from being held “liable for any injury resulting from the failure to provide or maintain sufficient personnel, equipment or other fire protection facilities.”
However, David Levine, a professor of law at UC San Francisco, said allowing a “dangerous condition” on your property offers lawyers a possible path around immunity.
“It’s going to depend on the facts,” Levine said.
It is unclear whether the smoldering depicted in the hiker’s video was on state land. Investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives determined the Lachman fire ignited on a 160-acre sliver of land owned by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority before spreading to Topanga State Park. The video appears to have been shot near the border of the two properties.
Whether or not the smoke in the video was on the state portion of the burn scar, the plaintiff attorneys claim it was clear the Lachman fire was not fully extinguished.
“The rekindle happened on the State Park land and that’s what matters to our case,” said Alexander “Trey” Robertson, an attorney who represents 3,300 Palisades residents and is co-leading litigation on behalf of all victims in the Palisades fire.
Plaintiff attorneys claim California State Parks did not sufficiently monitor the smoldering earth — even as NWS warned repeatedly in the days before Jan. 7 of “critical fire conditions” and a “life-threatening, dangerous” windstorm across parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
Protocol outlined in the state’s Department of Parks and Recreation Operations Manual indicates that staff should monitor burn scars: “Areas of a park unit which have burned will remain closed,” it states, “until appropriate Department staff have inspected the area and rectified any public safety, property or resource protection issues.”
Plaintiff attorneys argue that didn’t happen.
“The State failed to inspect and maintain its property and failed to provide proper fire protection on its property to allow embers from the Lachman Fire on its property,” the complaint states, “particularly in the presence of overgrown and poorly maintained dry chaparral, as well as knowledge of extreme fire weather conditions and predicted Red Flag Warning wind events.”
If a park ranger had inspected the Lachman burn scar and seen the smoke coming out of the ground, Robertson said, they could have urged LAFD to come back out and properly extinguish that fire.
It’s important to note the state has released few details about park rangers’ actions between the Lachman fire and the Palisades fire. It is possible state employees did monitor the burn scar and did not see smoke. California State Parks declined to provide details about ranger movements in the critical days between the two fires.
The area where the Lachman fire burned was not in a remote area, Robertson noted. It is just a couple minutes from a trailhead parking lot in an area popular with hikers.
“A park ranger could have very easily parked his or her truck, and walked a few-minute hike to top of the trail and just done a visual inspection,” Robertson said.
Spencer Pratt, a reality TV star who lost his home in the Palisades fire and has since become an advocate for accountability, said park managers have a duty to keep the public safe.
“It’s so obvious that they left it all smoldering — to the point where multiple hikers have videos of it still smoldering,” Pratt said. “We pay our taxes for it to be maintained. It’s in their policy manuals. It’s the law; it’s their government code: that it can’t create a danger to our town, our houses.”
What happened after the Lachman fire?
When flames lit up the hillside near Skull Rock on the Temescal Ridge Trail shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day, firefighters moved quickly to suppress the blaze.
Within minutes of getting the first 911 call, fire engines rushed to the nearest trailhead and LAFD firefighters hiked to Skull Rock on foot. County firefighters dug a handline to block the spread of the fire with the assistance of LAFD hose lines.
By 4:46 a.m., LAFD announced that firefighters had “completed the hose line around the perimeter of the fire” and it was “fully contained.” “Some resources will be released as the mop up operation continues,” it added, “to ensure no flare ups.”
The next day, when firefighters returned to collect fire hoses, “it appeared to them that the fire was fully extinguished,” according to an affidavit by a special agent with the ATF.
According to the ATF special agent, a firebrand became lodged within dense chaparral and then smoldered and burned within the roots of the vegetation. The underground burning, he stated, was not visible to firefighters or members of the public who visited the burn scar after the Lachman fire.
But that appears to be contradicted by the video taken Jan 2. A local resident shot footage showing smoke and no firefighters on site.
Five days later, the Palisades fire ignited in Topanga State Park about 20 feet south of the perimeter of the Lachman fire.
The legal case
Los Angeles firefighters have been widely criticized for their lack of preparation before the Palisades fire.
After the ATF announced this month that the Palisades fire was a holdover fire ignited by embers of the Lachman fire, Interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva told The Times that LAFD did not use thermal imaging technology to confirm the Lachman fire was out.
But attorneys face steep odds bringing legal claims against LAFD because California governmentcode gives public officials broad immunity against claims of negligent firefighting.
The case against the state, however, is different. Attorneys representing fire victims argue government immunity does not apply to the state’s failure to inspect its land in the days between the Lachman and Palisades fires to ensure that no smoldering embers remained that could reignite as meteorologists warned of dangerous Santa Ana winds.
The complaint cites a 1974 legal decision involving a fire at an airport owned and operated by the city and county of Imperial. The court found governmental immunity should not be used “to allow a public entity to escape responsibility from its failure to provide fire protection on property which it owns and manages itself, particularly where it has permitted a dangerous fire condition to exist on that property.”
After LAFD announced it had extinguished the Lachman fire, the complaint alleges, the state had a “non-delegable duty to inspect its property for dangerous condition given that embers in the root structure are a well-known phenomenon after such a fire, that there was heavy fuel in the form of dry overgrown, chaparral, and a serious known coming wind condition.”
It will be up to courts to determine whether state officials were actually neglectful.
Levine, the law professor not affiliated with the case, said the lawyers who filed the master complaint— a 198-page document that also targets L.A. Department of Water and Power and dozens of public and private entities — had put together an impressively detailed case. But the state could also offer counter evidence and experts might offer different opinions about how often the state would be expected to check the burn scar.
“I think what the plaintiffs are doing is saying, ‘We have a lot of ammunition here,’ and it’s kind of an invitation to consider settling,” Levine said. “It’s a high hurdle, but not an impossible hurdle, and they may have enough evidence to get over that hurdle.”
Even if they prevail, property owners might not actually get that much of a payout, Levine said, because so many of the homes that burned were insured.
“If a fire policy paid out a million dollars, say, on a house up there in Palisades, the insurance company is going to say, ‘We get our money back,’” Levine said. “So how much money would actually end up in the hands of fire victims, I think, would be somewhat open to question.”
The master complaint does not hold the MRCA liable for allowing a dangerous condition on the Lachman burn scar. But even if MRCA isn’t legally liable because the Palisades fire origin point was not on its land, the public agency dedicated to acquiring and preserving open space and parkland also faces questions about its protocol for monitoring burn scars.
The agency has its own fire crew, with 30 full-time, on-call and volunteer wildland firefighters. Its website says it deploys its fire crew on red flag days to prevent and assist in suppressing any fires and coordinates with local fire departments, which are better equipped for larger fire responses.
In a statement to The Times, MRCA said its fire crew “did not play a suppression or monitoring role in the Lachman Fire” and that LAFD “was the lead responding agency and managing authority for the Lachman Fire, working in coordination with the Los Angeles County Fire Department.”
After serving for decades as a community hub and popular shopping center, the Westminster Mall in Orange County is getting ready to close its doors.
Most of the shops in the mall will shut down on Oct. 29 when leases expire, according to Westminster City Manager Christine Cordon. The City Council approved a redevelopment plan in 2022 to turn the mall into a mixed-use site for housing, leisure and retail.
The 100-acre property, situated on the south side of the 405 Freeway, could soon offer 3,000 housing units and at least 600,000 square feet of upscale retail space.
“The community has expressed a strong desire to revitalize this important commercial center,” the redevelopment plan says. “The project site provides a unique opportunity to reposition the mall into the thriving activity center that it once was and to accommodate the future growth of the city.”
Community members gathered last week to say their goodbyes to the mall, which already has shuttered stores and empty parking lots. According to the mall’s online directory, popular shops such as Victoria’s Secret, Vans and Kay Jewelers are still open.
JCPenney, the mall’s oldest anchor store, is slated to close by Nov. 21. Best Buy and Target are expected to remain open for a few more years as the property undergoes redevelopment.
Alexis Malatesta, who frequented the mall as a teenager and now runs a Westminster Mall fan account on Instagram, hosted a farewell karaoke party at the mall on Friday.
She posted videos of the gathering, where several community members came to reminisce and sing songs in the mall’s honor.
Malatesta’s Instagram says it’s “a page dedicated solely to the Westminster Mall’s battle with terminal illness,” referencing the mall’s long, rocky fall from its prime.
In 1986, the mall was Orange County’s second-highest-grossing retail center. The next year, the mall announced a big renovation plan.
In its heyday, the mall was a gathering spot when there were few other places to hang out. It was where kids found the latest fashions and where “mall rats” roamed in packs after school.
Malatesta, who grew up in Huntington Beach, said she spent countless afternoons at the mall in the early 2000s, riding the carousel and snapping digital photos. As the mall fell into disrepair, she posted stunts on social media to try to generate business, including a fake wedding ceremony to declare her marriage to the mall.
“I wanted to get people to go enjoy the space while it was still there,” she said in an interview. “The Westminster Mall was a huge part of my childhood and I’ve met a ton of people through our shared obsession with the mall.”
The Westminster Mall opened in 1974 on the former site of the world’s largest goldfish farm, according to city documents.
It underwent major renovations in the 1980s and in 2008, and is now controlled by four companies that share ownership of the property: Kaiser Permanente, Shopoff Realty, True Life Cos. and Washington Prime Group.
True Life, a Denver-based real estate firm, has received permission from the city to build a five-story, multifamily housing structure on the 3.6 acres that was previously occupied by Babies R Us.
Because of a pending agreement between the four companies, a demolition date for the mall has not been set.
Though the city has ambitious redevelopment plans, the Westminster Mall will lose its nostalgic value for Malatesta, now 33 years old.
“You can go into an indoor mall and you can forget about the outside world,” Malatesta said. “Westminster Mall was my spot.”
A mass shooting at a crowded bar on an idyllic South Carolina island has left four people dead and at least 20 injured, officials say.The shooting occurred early Sunday at Willie’s Bar and Grill on St. Helena Island, officials said. A large crowd was at the scene when sheriff’s deputies arrived and found several people suffering from gunshot wounds.“Multiple victims and witnesses ran to the nearby businesses and properties seeking shelter from the gun shots,” the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on the social media platform X.“This is a tragic and difficult incident for everyone. We ask for your patience as we continue to investigate this incident. Our thoughts are with all of the victims and their loved ones,” the statement said.Four people were found dead at the scene, and at least 20 other people were injured. Among the injured, four were in critical condition at area hospitals.The victims’ identities were not released.“COMPLETELY HEARTBROKEN to learn about the devastating shooting in Beaufort County,” U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace posted on X. “Our prayers are with the victims, their families, and everyone impacted by this horrific act of violence.”St. Helena Island is considered the largest Gullah community on the South Carolina coast. An estimated 5,000 or more people living there are descended from slaves who worked rice plantations in the area before they were freed by the Civil War.Smaller enclaves of Gullah, referred to as Geechee in some areas, are scattered along the Southeast coast from North Carolina to Florida. Scholars say separation from the mainland caused the Gullah to retain much of their African heritage, including a unique dialect and skills such as cast-net fishing and basket weaving.
BEAUFORT, S.C. —
A mass shooting at a crowded bar on an idyllic South Carolina island has left four people dead and at least 20 injured, officials say.
The shooting occurred early Sunday at Willie’s Bar and Grill on St. Helena Island, officials said. A large crowd was at the scene when sheriff’s deputies arrived and found several people suffering from gunshot wounds.
“Multiple victims and witnesses ran to the nearby businesses and properties seeking shelter from the gun shots,” the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on the social media platform X.
“This is a tragic and difficult incident for everyone. We ask for your patience as we continue to investigate this incident. Our thoughts are with all of the victims and their loved ones,” the statement said.
Four people were found dead at the scene, and at least 20 other people were injured. Among the injured, four were in critical condition at area hospitals.
The victims’ identities were not released.
“COMPLETELY HEARTBROKEN to learn about the devastating shooting in Beaufort County,” U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace posted on X. “Our prayers are with the victims, their families, and everyone impacted by this horrific act of violence.”
St. Helena Island is considered the largest Gullah community on the South Carolina coast. An estimated 5,000 or more people living there are descended from slaves who worked rice plantations in the area before they were freed by the Civil War.
Smaller enclaves of Gullah, referred to as Geechee in some areas, are scattered along the Southeast coast from North Carolina to Florida. Scholars say separation from the mainland caused the Gullah to retain much of their African heritage, including a unique dialect and skills such as cast-net fishing and basket weaving.
A mass shooting at a crowded bar on an idyllic South Carolina island has left four people dead and at least 20 injured, officials say.The shooting occurred early Sunday at Willie’s Bar and Grill on St. Helena Island, officials said. A large crowd was at the scene when sheriff’s deputies arrived and found several people suffering from gunshot wounds.“Multiple victims and witnesses ran to the nearby businesses and properties seeking shelter from the gun shots,” the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on the social media platform X.“This is a tragic and difficult incident for everyone. We ask for your patience as we continue to investigate this incident. Our thoughts are with all of the victims and their loved ones,” the statement said.Four people were found dead at the scene, and at least 20 other people were injured. Among the injured, four were in critical condition at area hospitals.The victims’ identities were not released.“COMPLETELY HEARTBROKEN to learn about the devastating shooting in Beaufort County,” U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace posted on X. “Our prayers are with the victims, their families, and everyone impacted by this horrific act of violence.”
BEAUFORT, S.C. —
A mass shooting at a crowded bar on an idyllic South Carolina island has left four people dead and at least 20 injured, officials say.
The shooting occurred early Sunday at Willie’s Bar and Grill on St. Helena Island, officials said. A large crowd was at the scene when sheriff’s deputies arrived and found several people suffering from gunshot wounds.
“Multiple victims and witnesses ran to the nearby businesses and properties seeking shelter from the gun shots,” the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on the social media platform X.
“This is a tragic and difficult incident for everyone. We ask for your patience as we continue to investigate this incident. Our thoughts are with all of the victims and their loved ones,” the statement said.
Four people were found dead at the scene, and at least 20 other people were injured. Among the injured, four were in critical condition at area hospitals.
The victims’ identities were not released.
“COMPLETELY HEARTBROKEN to learn about the devastating shooting in Beaufort County,” U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace posted on X. “Our prayers are with the victims, their families, and everyone impacted by this horrific act of violence.”
The doors and windows are done. The appliances are on the way. The hardwood floors are stacked and ready to lay down.
In January, Ted Koerner’s Altadena house was incinerated in the Eaton fire along with thousands of others.
But today, he and his 13-year-old dog, Daisy, are just weeks from returning to their property after spending most of the year in temporary quarters, and they might be the first Altadenans to move into a completely rebuilt house.
“We’re starting to practice being home,” Koerner said in his front yard, with Daisy at his feet and a work crew applying finishing touches in the living room.
Daisy, a dark-eyed golden retriever with a coat that looks like a luxurious white bathrobe, is the star of this story and the reason Koerner is determined to have the house completed as soon as possible.
“I just want to go home,” said Ted Koerner to neighbors about his home that is being rebuilt.
Daisy, or Daisy Mae, as Koerner sometimes calls her, is well beyond average life expectancy for a golden retriever, and he wanted her to live out her life on the property that was their sanctuary. He feeds her salmon and bottled water; no impurities for his girl, who has Russian and Danish lineage and is as smart as she is sweet, according to the proudest of dog owners.
“That dog has saved my life more times than I can count,” said Koerner, 66, who is single, suffers from bouts of depression, and bonded with Daisy the day he rescued her as a puppy. “She is my service dog.”
They lost everything but each other, and for Daisy’s sake, as much as his own, he has pushed and prodded, eager to get home.
“They framed the whole house, and the garage, in three days. Thirty journeymen framers. Because of her,” said Koerner, his voice breaking as he recalled the house-raising that began in mid-July. “They all understood, if she dies before I get home, don’t finish building it, because I’ll be dead the same day.”
Work continues on Koerner’s home, where he expects to be moving in soon in Altadena.
Koerner believes he’ll be the first person to move into a brand new house in the Altadena fire zone. An L.A. County rebuilding coordinator backed that up, although Victoria Knapp, who chairs the Altadena Town Council, said one other project is speeding toward completion.
Given that two-thirds of the 6,000-plus burned properties haven’t even hit the permitting phase yet, and that it could be a few years before a rebuilt Altadena takes shape, the questions here are obvious:
What magic did Koerner perform to approach the finish line in short order, and are there lessons for others?
Koerner runs an investigations and fraud-prevention company that has had decades of dealings with government agencies and assorted businesses, including insurance companies. So although he was just one David against an army of Goliaths, he was not new to the practice of reloading a slingshot.
Before the smoke of the Eaton fire had cleared, while staying with Daisy at a Pasadena hotel, Koerner met an Army Corps of Engineers official who advised him that once his lot was cleared, he should pour the cement of a new foundation as soon as possible. Whatever it took to make it happen, do it. That would put him at the front of the line in a crowd of thousands rebuilding from scratch.
Koerner took the advice to heart and decided not to wait on an insurance payment, which could be indefinitely disputed and delayed. Instead, he liquidated retirement funds and plowed ahead on his own nickel with the hope of getting reimbursed later.
Koerner and Daisy spend a warm moment together.
Any major construction project is a herding expedition in a blinding fog, and it can be a test of patience and sanity. The plumber is here but the faucets aren’t. The drywall crew shows up but can’t do anything until the electrician runs the wiring. The sprinkling system is done but the inspector just left on a Hawaiian vacation. And the roof tiles were last seen on a pickup truck that might or might not have left a warehouse in Arizona, or possibly New Mexico.
This is why people often crack that you should take the promised cost and timeline of a project, double both, and line up a good marriage counselor. In the aftermath of an epic disaster, you also have to wrangle with the complications of destroyed infrastructure, permitting bottlenecks, insurance disputes and scary levels of contamination.
I know of one company, Genesis Builders, that says it’s managing and speeding the entire process with pre-designed homes that can be completed in 15 months, but I haven’t checked out the details yet.
For those interested in following Koerner’s lead, how best to proceed?
Koerner Lesson No. 1: “Email is not communication.”
And what’s he mean by that?
“If you send an email and wait for a callback, you’re not going to get one,” he said. “No city, no county, no governmental agency is ever ready for a disaster of this magnitude. It’s always going to be chaos.”
He called people, instead, and kept a file of direct lines, or he met with people face to face. He was the proverbial squeaky wheel, never taking no for an answer, and he was able to invest a ton of his own time, even if it meant being on hold long enough to repeatedly read “Old Yeller” and watch the movie.
Koerner heaped praise on Anish Saraiya, director of the Altadena recovery for L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, for helping him navigate the maze. When I used the word “persistent” to describe Koerner, Saraiya corrected me.
“He’s tenacious,” he said.
Saraiya said Koerner has helped identify roadblocks to progress — such as the typical lead time in lining up utility services — and the county is working to streamline the entire rebuilding process for everyone.
Koerner Lesson No. 2: “Make a decision to go home.”
By that, he means get moving, and keep the blueprints simple.
“This is not the time to build a mansion to your legacy,” Koerner said. “Do you want to go home, or do you want to mess with every three inches of where the sink goes, the closet goes, every door, every window? Make a decision and stick with it. … This is not some grand demonstration of your design capabilities. This is about going home, or you go to the back of the line and wait.”
Koerner Lesson No. 3: “Hire a builder who understands the meaning of the word ‘finish.’”
Before the fire, Koerner was having his bathrooms remodeled by Innova Creative Solution, a Van Nuys-based general contracting company. He trusted project manager Jossef Abraham, so he hired him to build his new house. And Abraham, according to Koerner, has kept things moving as promised.
“I think it helps a lot for people who are victims of fire to see progress,” Abraham told me, saying he’s managed the bureaucratic hurdles and made sure his material suppliers are lined up.
The house will be better shielded against fire, Abraham said, with concrete roof tiles, tempered windows, sprinklers and enclosed eaves. He said he’s well aware of Koerner’s bond with Daisy, and although he doesn’t know if he can get man and his best friend home by Halloween, he thinks six weeks is doable.
“Daisy is his entire world and she’s just amazing. What a dog,” Abraham said. ”
Koerner and Daisy sit in the backyard of their Altadena home.
Koerner’s house sits just west of Lake Avenue, where mountain and metropolis meet, with sweeping views across the valley and down to the sea. On clear days, Koerner said, he can see to Dana Point and to Ventura.
He avoided visiting his property before framing began, too depressed by the empty space where home had been since 2006. When Daisy was a pup, Koerner began planting dozens of native plants near the Aleppo pines and fig trees, creating what he called their campground arboretum. Most of which was destroyed.
On a recent visit with Daisy, Koerner took a seat in the front yard, under a heritage oak tree that survived the fire, and looked down the hill toward dozens of vacant lots where houses once stood and disaster seemed remote. Daisy seemed surprised, maybe even confused, by the altered terrain. But she soon fell into a familiar rhythm.
“She immediately walked over to me and wiggled around like goldens do,” Koerner said. “She looked at me, licked my hands, lay down next to my feet and went sound asleep. And the neighbor and I cried a lot because that’s all that matters to dogs, is that they’re with us.”
It pays less and less to buy and flip a home these days. From April through June, the typical home flipped by an investor resulted in a 25.1% return on investment, before expenses. That’s the lowest profit margin for such transactions since 2008, according to an analysis by Attom, a real estate data company.
Gross profits — the difference between what an investor paid for a property and what it sold for — fell 13.6% in the second quarter from a year earlier to $65,300, the firm said. Attom’s analysis defines a flipped home as a property that sells within 12 months of the last time it sold.
Home flippers buy a home, typically with cash, then pay for any repairs or upgrades needed to spruce up the property before putting it back on the market.
The shrinking profitability for home flipping is largely due to home prices, which continue to climb nationally, albeit at a slower pace, driving up acquisition costs for investors.
“We’re seeing very low profit margins from home flipping because of the historically high cost of homes,” said Rob Barber, Attom’s CEO. “The initial buy-in for properties that are ideal for flipping, often lower priced homes that may need some work, keeps going up.”
The median price of a home flipped in the second quarter was bought by an investor for $259,700, a record high according to data going back to 2000, according to Attom.
The median sales price of flipped homes was $325,000, unchanged from the first quarter, the firm said.
A chronic shortage of homes on the market and heightened competition for lower-priced properties are also helping drive up investors’ acquisition costs.
Home flipping profits have declined for more than a decade as home prices rose along with the housing market’s recovery from the housing crash in the late 2000s.
Consider, in the fall of 2012, the typical flipped home netted a 62.9% return on investment before expenses, Attom said.
Even as home flipping has become less profitable, such transactions remain widespread.
Some 78,621 single-family homes and condos were flipped in the April-June quarter, accounting for 7.4% of all home sales during the quarter — a slight decline from both the first quarter and the second quarter of 2024, according to Attom.
As home sales have slowed, properties are taking longer to sell. That’s led to a sharply higher inventory of homes on the market, benefiting investors and other home shoppers who can afford to bypass current mortgage rates by paying in cash or tapping home equity gains.
With many aspiring homeowners priced out of the market, real estate investors — whether those looking to buy and rent or home flippers — are taking up a bigger share of U.S. home sales overall.
Some 33% of all homes sold in the second quarter were bought by investors — the highest share in at least five years, according to a report by real estate data provider BatchData.
Between 2020 and 2023, the share of homes bought by investors averaged 18.5%.
All told, investors bought 345,752 homes in the April-June quarter, an increase of 15% from the first quarter, but a 12% decline from the same period last year, the firm said.
Even so, investor-owned homes account for roughly 20% of the nation’s 86 million single-family homes, the firm said.
Fortune Global Forum returns Oct. 26–27, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.
Groves will turn to graves in Woodland Hills, where a developer has plans to redevelop Boething Treeland Nursery into a cemetery.
The 32-acre nursery has grown trees and other plants for the San Fernando Valley for the last seven decades, but it sold last year for $3.96 million to Dignity Memorial, the nation’s largest funeral provider. The company is in the process of submitting plans to the city of L.A. to get approval for a cemetery and funeral home on the property.
Some locals aren’t so ready for the change. The site is sandwiched between a trio of affluent communities — Woodland Hills, Hidden Hills and Calabasas — loaded with famous and outspoken residents.
The region, known for its rolling hills and serene setting, has become a hot spot for rappers, athletes and Kardashians looking for privacy outside the bustle of L.A. Such peace has a price tag — homes there regularly fetch $10 million or more — so when the proposed development became public, residents started petitioning, claiming religious objections, traffic concerns or the fright factor of living next to a cemetery.
More recently, the locals hired a law firm, Raskin Tepper Sloan Law, to push back on the project. On Monday, the firm sent a letter to the L.A. Planning Department urging the city to review the plans before giving it the green light.
“We understand this represents a significant change for the neighborhood,” said Aaron Green, the project’s spokesperson. “We value being a good neighbor and look forward to open conversations as we move forward with our plans.”
The site is sandwiched between a trio of affluent communities — Woodland Hills, Hidden Hills and Calabasas.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Green said the cemetery will have a serene and garden-like aesthetic, complete with fencing and a landscaped privacy wall around the perimeter. Two buildings will be added: a storage facility and a space for celebration of life services. Memorials will take place only during the day.
The developer will get construction and grading permits to make the property more walkable and add places for burials. The land is already zoned for use as a cemetery by right, meaning the process is expedited and doesn’t require any public hearings.
Green noted that Dignity Memorial has already started speaking with local stakeholders, despite plans not yet being submitted.
For some residents, that’s not enough. In response to mounting objections, the city of Hidden Hills released an update last month saying that the property is outside the city’s sphere of influence, and that since no new zoning is necessary, it doesn’t expect any public input in the process.
No lawsuit has been filed, but the letter sent by the law firm claims that the project shouldn’t automatically be granted the zoning rights the developer claims it has. Instead, it argues it should go through a more rigorous approval process with a CEQA review that measures the cemetery’s potential impacts on the environment, traffic and the surrounding neighborhoods.
“Dignity Memorial is attempting to sneak ‘by right’ approvals for their massive 32-acre cemetery without any public process or environmental review. Despite what may be months, if not years, of internal planning, Dignity has not shown a single site plan to nearby residents, businesses or schools,” said Scott J. Tepper, the attorney representing the residents.
Tepper said the locals aren’t NIMBYs; they’re just asking for a more rigorous review process.
In order for a project to receive the expedited timeline granted from zoning by right, it has to meet certain criteria that ensures it doesn’t disrupt the community. Green claims the cemetery plans meet all the criteria.
For example, the city requires that any added buildings be at least 300 feet away from adjacent buildings in the surrounding neighborhoods. Green said the two buildings will be that far away.
The city also requires security fencing around the entire property. Green said the fence and landscaped wall satisfy that requirement.
That hasn’t stopped locals from weighing in.
“Where was the process on this one?” wrote Helene Chemel under a Facebook post from Valley News Group, which has been reporting on the proposed development.
Others are more welcoming.
“The neighbors will be much quieter than the ones that would have been expected if the original plan had gone through,” wrote Alison Kenney, referring to earlier attempts to develop the property.
In 1985, the Boething family proposed a 22-building complex with offices and condos, a 200-room hotel, and parking for 3,630 cars. The project was met with backlash and fizzled out.
Plans ramped up again in 2017, with applications submitted for a 60,000-square-foot elderly care facility, 26 single-family homes and 95 small-lot dwellings for a total of 413,588 square feet of building space. Protests mounted again, and the plans never materialized.
“Our family decided the nursery could not continue indefinitely, and neighbors made clear they did not want a large residential project,” said Bruce Pherson, chief executive of Boething Treeland Farms. “We felt Dignity Memorial was the right buyer and we knew a cemetery would be far less impactful.”
Dignity will submit plans to the city next month. Upon approval, construction will start next year with the goal of opening the cemetery by late 2026 or early 2027.
Green said that while public hearings won’t be necessary, the company will engage with neighbors once plans are submitted.
“A cemetery is one of the least impactful, community-sensitive uses that can be proposed for this property,” he said.
