Photo courtesy of PPCC
By SARAH SHMERLING | Editor-in-Chief
More than 450 attendees tuned into a special meeting co-hosted by Pacific Palisades Community Council and Councilmember Traci Park on Thursday evening, August 7, to review a “recovery vision” for what lies ahead and a presentation by AECOM.
Park addressed the “pivotal moment” for the community as it reached seven months after the Palisades fire, transitioning from “mop up and debris removal” into the “long-term construction phase” in what will be “the largest construction effort in our city’s history.” She said she took information from “hundreds of meetings,” time spent in areas that experienced disasters, like Lahaina and Paradise, and meetings with contractors, builders and beyond into a “vision document.”
“As your councilmember, I am adamant that your voices and your needs and priorities and that your decisions are at the core of every decision we make and every step that we take going forward,” Park said. “My office and I are going to be here to help provide the coordination and the policy tools and support that you need, as well as the help that you’re going to need to continue your journey through this recovery.”
Park then shared her “recovery vision,” detailing that it would be “community-led” and “government-supported,” while rebuilding “the Palisades for the victims” and preserving the character. She also addressed improving emergency preparedness and modernizing infrastructure.
She detailed recovery surveys that were administered with the help of Maryam Zar and Palisades Recovery Coalition on a “wide range of issues,” spanning “insurance challenges; rebuilding priorities, plans and timelines; and infrastructure and public amenities upgrades and changes.”
“Most respondents lived in the Palisades for over 20 years and nearly 40% had children living under the age of 18 living with them at the time of the fire,” Park said of the just-under 1,000 responses.
About 37% said they planned to live outside of the Palisades for more than two years, while 32.5% said they would be back in less than two years and 30.5% were unsure. For those who were unsure, less than 35% reported “being adequately insured for the losses or damages” suffered.
The recovery vision included land use and preservation of community character, protecting and assisting property owners and renters, supporting small business recovery, infrastructure to support fire safety and emergency preparedness, protecting and restoring the natural environment, coordinated operations and logistics for the rebuild, restoring public spaces and amenities, and governance and funding strategy for the long-term rebuilding effort.
“The Pacific Palisades is a very unique coastal community with extremely limited ingress and egress, many sub-standard, old, narrow roads … ” Park described. “It is imperative that we continue to treat the Palisades with the due care that is necessary in all of our planning as we move through the rebuilding phase. I also think that it is really important that we respect the character of the Palisades, its natural beauty, the low-density hillside neighborhoods, your walkable village center.”
When it comes to coordinated operations and logistics for the rebuild, Park said she was “very, very grateful” to have AECOM on board to take on the load of the “very heavy lift.” Mayor Karen Bass announced on June 6 that the global infrastructure firm had been selected to “support a number of long-term components in the city’s recovery effort.”
AECOM Program Manager Matt Talley, who is also a disaster survivor, presented during the PPCC meeting after Park concluded, reporting in an activity update that they had “integrated with all relevant city department working groups” in the three weeks they have been involved, having attended more than 15 meetings at the time of the meeting.
Talley detailed three main areas of focus: infrastructure, including water and power; fire protection; and logistics and traffic management, mainly during the construction phase. Within the next 120 days, Talley said, the community can expect to see “three concrete plans,” which will be “data-driven” with “community input.”
“This is going to be a roadmap,” according to AECOM. “It lays out what the next steps are to your focus on concrete, action-oriented activities, so it really is intended to be a roadmap to continue the progress moving forward.”
The infrastructure restoration plan includes an “assessment of existing damage and current status, baseline infrastructure data, restoration tiers and strategic framework for rebuild,” according to the slideshow.
The fire protection plan “outlines phased strategies for fire protection and prevention mitigation measures, firefighting water supply alternatives, emergency access, evacuation planning and community protection priorities.” This involves coordinating with agencies like Los Angeles Fire Department and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
Logistics and traffic management will include “access assessment, staging strategies, traffic control plans, protocols to support safe and efficient recovery operations.”
The meeting included after an hour Q&A session with members of the board and community.
A recording of the complete meeting and Park’s full recovery vision are available at pacpalicc.org.
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