Justin Kokhanov envisions one of the most spectacular apartment buildings in neighborhood history, in the ashes of a family’s shell gas station along the Pacific Palisade’s main commercial corridor. It has a Cape Cod style white brick facade, along with a shade and a metal roof. 8th floor high. and up to 100 apartments, including those reserved for low-income residents.

It was always in Kokhanov’s long-term plan to redevelop the gas station lot on Sunset Boulevard into residential areas. Palisades have become long-term after the fire tore the community in January.

“It’s going to be beautiful,” Kokhanov said. “I can’t wait for it to break the ground and make it happen.”

Kohanov knows that it doesn’t happen without a fight.

Before the fire, the average home in Pallisard in the Pacific was $3.5 million, earning a median of $325,000, with a total number of rental units restricted as affordable homes of two. Some residents want more exclusiveness after the fire. One went up until then Suggestions via the community text message chain The reconstructed Palisade requires the use of drones to track unfamiliar cars.

Kohanoff’s project represents a rethinking of the wildness of Palisade homes. There, apartments lined up in the sunset were topped with several stories, leaving the ocean views of the hillside mansion that rose above.

This devastation primarily affected the wealthy, detached outdoor enclaves in the neighborhood, but Palisades lost more than 1,300 multi-family units and mobile homes in the disaster. Of these, 770 were located in old buildings covered by the city’s rent management law, offering affordable levels to long-time tenants who are now disappearing.

Palisades’ homeowners and leaders in reconstruction efforts have expressed opposition to the prospect of adding low-income housing at times. Even rebuilding the apartments there faces challenges. Landlords hope to struggle to reclaim their buildings through the bureaucratic quagmire, and disruptions about possible income and rent restrictions only add to the unpredictability.

The combination of resistance to low-income housing and the destruction of rent-controlled apartments could spell out the end of the income diversity that exists in Palisade before the fire, according to Anthony Orlando, an associate professor at Calpolipomona. His research We discovered that natural disasters lead to higher rents for years.

“If you want people who can’t afford to buy property worth more than $1 million to live there, you have to put some kind of rent limit,” Orlando said.

It was once possible for electricians, teachers and other middle-class and middle-class personnel to purchase a Palisade home. Many of these older homeowners, strengthened by California law that keeps property taxes low despite escalating market values, are: I stayed for decades Before the fire.

A longtime renter who lived in rent-controlled apartments also benefited similarly. A landlord with a building built before October 1978 was able to charge a new tenant at the market rate upon moving. However, once tenants signed the lease, the annual rent increase was limited.

Eighteen years ago, Guy Horton and his wife rented a two-bedroom townhome at sunset. Shortly after we moved, they had a daughter, but five years later.

“It’s the only home they’ve ever known,” Horton said.

His children grew up through ballet classes at the recreation center and attended Paul Libya Middle and High Charter Schools in Palisades. Horton taught Tai Chi classes every week on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

On the day of the fire, 56-year-old Horton grabbed a garden hose in a futile attempt to save the building. He was one of the last people to leave his property. The family paid $2,800 a month.

“This myth is what made tenants more nomadic,” said Horton, who works as a strategist and researcher at a communications company. “When you get a cheap apartment, you hold on to it for the life you love.”

Due to its wealth and high quality amenities, Pacific Palisades fit the description of communities that prioritized affordable housing under state and local policies, and projects may receive financial and zoning incentives. This includes not only homes for middle-income people, but Army of low-income gardeners, housekeepers and nannies It marched into the neighborhood every day for work.

Fear of pushing towards low-income housing has been fueled Conspiracy theories Gov. Gavin Newsom was using the disaster to rezone Palisades from their detached houses to their apartments.

Political and community leaders delicately handled affordable housing questions.

“There’s no way there’s anything to do with Pallisad,” Mayor Karen Bass said when asked about rezoning on a walking tour of the neighborhood’s destruction in January. “What happens is done to people,” a mayor’s spokesman repeated a time when Bass was listening to community feedback on the issue.

Bass’ Recovery Czar, developer Steve Soboroff, said in an interview that he supported more apartments in the neighborhood, but that wasn’t a priority.

“We’re not rethinking,” Soborov said. “We’re rebuilding.”

He said he encourages commercial property owners to restore the building as before to utilize streamlined permit rules, but later build it in a way that allows for mixed apartments.

Soboroff called the idea of ​​blocking “Elitist” affordable homes in Palisades.

“In the act, it was once ‘no Jews or blacks’,” Soborov said. “They now, ‘Are there any affordable housing?” such things will not hold a convocation. ”

Rick Caruso, the billionaire developer who lost the 2022 mayoral election and launched a nonprofit foundation for wildfire recovery, says that while he supports a wide range of affordable housing, the push to expand it at Pallisard comes from “outside interests” and is detrimental to reconstruction efforts.

“Now is not the time for external groups that are not locally involved to slow people’s ability to rebuild their homes by trying to impose an agenda,” Caruso said.

Steadfast LA, a board member of the Caruso’s Wildfire Foundation, has gone further. Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of data mining company Palantir; I laughed at the prospect of bringing affordable housing to Pallisard on social media platform X. Post a screenshot with headlines suggesting that the city will mandate it.

“Sorry, we won’t be rebuilding a flashy, burnt-out house in the oceans of LA until a new crack nest is installed in the middle of our neighborhood,” Lonsdale writes.

Increased density requires combating the risk of future fires and limited evacuation routes through the winding hills and canyons in the neighborhood. January 7th, the fugitive I abandoned my car on Sunset Boulevard in Jampack and escaped on foot Smoke swirls behind me. The bulldozers had to clear the roads so emergency responders could enter the community.

After resident of Palisade for over 30 years, Chris Spitz has been active on the Neighborhood Council for many years. She wants to rebuild her home, and said the rent-controlled apartments lined up on Sunset Boulevard allowed people otherwise could not afford to raise their families.

She wants to go back to the building. But it’s not new.

“I want to see affordable housing,” Spitz said. “At the same time, we are truly against density due to the impact on public safety.”

Due to chaos in local and state law, restrictions are laid out that limit tenants’ income and rents when the destroyed apartments are rebuilt. These rules are written for voluntary demolition and it is unclear whether they will apply after a wildfire.

Newsam Presidential order from last month This means that all rent-controlled homes burned down in Palisades must be covered in rent control if rebuilt. City law officers have expressed their opposition through city Ati. Sponsorship for Hydee Feldstein Soto New State Laws It would apply rent control rules to rebuild the apartment if signed into law.

The landlords of Pallisard say they need to clear many hurdles before deciding what they are about to do. One of the worries is removing debris from property and insurance, both in the current claim and prospects of future coverage.

Some people think that with higher construction costs, there are too many challenges to come back.

“I wish we could rebuild it, but I don’t think that’s going on,” said Larry Larson, general partner at Pacific Investment Company, which owned the 47-unit rent-controlled apartment building in the sunset.

Kohanoff, the owner of the Shell Station, is itchy to move forward and intends to submit a formal proposal within a few months. His building will skyrocket beyond the city’s limit on the height of the building in Pallisard, but he plans to submit the project under state law. Limit the city’s capacity To deny it.

To qualify for these laws, Kokhanov must limit several apartments for low-income residents. According to current regulations, couples under $55,450 can rent a single bedroom in one of these units for $929 per month.

Kokhanov is being prepared for a fight.

“We have time in our hands so we can work on the city and build what we want to build to fight against them,” he said. “I know they’re not going to give us that on a silver platter.”

There is a “not for sale” sign at the corner of a shell gas station where developer Justin Kohanov wants to build an apartment in Pallisard, the Pacific Ocean.

(Genaro Molina / Angeles Times)

Horton, a former Palisade tenant, said despite his attachment to the community, his family is unlikely to return.

They recently came to make it happen. Shortly after the fire went out, they saw a rental of the Pallisard building, which was still standing.

The more they think about it, the less meaningful it would be to come back. In the short term, they need to bring in safe drinking water. As they passed by, their daughters felt hurt by the life of the disaster and the devastation around them.

What’s more, the rent was more than twice what they had previously paid.

Times staff writers Sandy Yakanbanpati and Doug Smith contributed to this report.