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Rebuilding Malibu, CA, has been a slow process after the deadly Palisades fire in January 2025.
The upscale community, with a population near 11,000, felt the effects all the way to the Pacific Ocean—with multimillion-dollar homes along Pacific Coast Highway burned to the ground.
“It has been a slow start in some ways,” Malibu Mayor Marianne Riggins tells Realtor.com®. “The city took very immediate action when the fire occurred. This, unfortunately, is not our first fire. And so we recognize that there were things, given how large an event it was, that there were extra steps we were going to need to take.”
As the year anniversary approaches, the community is trying to rebuild. The painful process has been thoughtful, but slow.
“We put up a rebuild center and started working on amendments to our codes that we were going to need, just knowing where the fire occurred and everything,” says Riggins.
The Malibu Rebuilds center was set up to help people through the process of navigating city codes and permits. A 12- to 24-month timeline for permits is what the city anticipates for anyone applying.
Malibu was still trying to find its footing following the Woolsey fire in 2018 that wiped out hundreds of homes.
“We’re still recovering. So just in the last seven years, we’ve lost basically 1,000 homes,” Riggins adds. “They’re homes that have stood for almost 100 years. Some of those homes were built in the late ’30s and early ’40s. It’s a huge part of our history—that was just gone.”
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Rebuilding from the Palisades fire
There are several phases to the rebuilding process in Malibu.
The mayor says at least 700 structures were destroyed by the Palisades fire, with nearly 600 of those single-family homes. The rebuilding has been at a crawl.
Overall, the city of Malibu has issued 432 preliminary building permits within what’s considered the burn area. These permits are for damage, repairs, debris removal, and structures—which could be garages or outbuildings.
Planning phase:
- For single-family residences, 69 applications have been submitted to the planning board and are now under review.
- The planning board has approved 118 applications, and those can move on to the building phase.
Building phase:
- There have been 28 “building plan check” applications submitted. These are projects that have been submitted for plans to be checked for required codes and are being reviewed by city departments.
- Only 17 official building permits—meaning the building plans are approved to go ahead with construction—have been issued.
But “zero” certificates of occupancy have been issued. In other words, anyone who lost a home has yet to finish rebuilding, pass inspections, and move in.
“There are many who want to rebuild, and there are many who have decided that the task is more than they want to tackle,” Riggins says. “So they have chosen to sell the home.”
Code requirements
Strict rebuilding codes are in place to protect homes from future fires or other disasters.
New beachfront properties must meet FEMA’s flood plain requirements. Existing seawalls must be replaced unless a licensed engineer can certify they are compliant, and timber piles are no longer allowed.
In addition, for narrow parcels along La Costa Beach, view restrictions are in place. Plus, most new construction is not allowed to have septic systems; rather, they will require an Advanced Onsite Wastewater Treatment System.
“We have height standards. We have square footage, amount. And what we are really trying to do is get people to use either ‘like for like’ or ‘like for like plus 10%’ which means look at the box that you have and try and rebuild that box,” says Riggins.
Coastal properties have significantly higher fees and a long checklist for rebuilding permits, compared with rebuilding noncoastal homes.
For starters, an $11,579 base planning fee is required, not including any fees for site reviews, modifications, and variances, according to Malibu Rebuilds.
“So you might have to change the look, but we’re encouraging people to put back the basic box of the original structure that they had,” Riggins adds.
Manufactured Malibu
There’s been buzz about homeowners turning to manufactured homes as a convenient alternative to rebuilding, and people may be surprised to learn it’s not the first time.
In August, Realtor.com exclusively revealed that a foreign investor had secretly snapped up burned lots along Pacific Coast Highway. The brothers, Nick and Mat Mowbray, have so far spent $65 million to purchase several burned beachfront properties.
In September, Marcel Fontijn, director of U.S. operations for Zuru unit Zuru Tech, told Realtor.com that some components of the homes they plan to build will be manufactured overseas.
“We’re going to use off-site build components because we believe that having some off-site components for the rebuild is beneficial to Malibu, because PCH is such a tight road,” Fontijn told Realtor.com at the time.
Fontijn went on to explain that having some, not all, factory-built parts will allow the construction process to move faster.
Riggins tells Realtor.com that she is not opposed to manufactured homes being built along the coastline.
“It has to meet the California Building Code. And then once it meets the California Building Code, then it has to meet either within that same box, that ‘like for like’, or if they’re going to make changes, then they have to apply for possibly a coastal development permit,” Riggins says. “But we have design guidelines for beachfront development.”
“So in other words, they follow those and meet the building code, then we will certainly look at their plans and make sure they conform to all our local rules and the state rules. And if it’s got compliance, then they should be able to build that right.”
She adds that this wouldn’t be the first time she’s seen this alternative.
“In the Woolsey fire, we did see a number of homeowners that chose to go with modular or manufactured homes for their rebuild,” explains Riggins. “And honestly, many of them, you wouldn’t know just looking at them.”
Back home again
What’s more concerning to Riggins is keeping and getting back the families that have called Malibu home, herself included. The mayor has lived in the city since 1968.
“When you hear that a home is sold and somebody new is going to rebuild, just wanting to make sure that it’s going to be somebody that joins our community. That it’s not just a second home or a third home that’s going to be empty,” Riggins says.
“We’re really looking for people who want to join in our community and be a part of our community and have kids that go to our schools and open small businesses and frequent our small businesses.
“So we’re hoping that people will see Malibu, not just as a play destination, but an actual home where they can live their lives, and they can really be part of the community.”
She adds that the city council has been focused on trying to build those “like for like” homes, and that many of the homes that were burned by the fire were inland.
With a median list price in Malibu of $5,950,000, according to Realtor.com data, there are still homes away from the ocean where families have put down roots year-round.
“The homes that did burn were some of our oldest in our community. They were more sized for families,” Riggins says. “They weren’t gargantuan mansions. We’re really trying to focus on having those more modest homes rebuilt so that it will be affordable for people to join our community.”
And she’s hoping that residents that had to relocate find their way back. Realtor.com data reveals, in the months following the fire, residents were searching other California metros, such as Oxnard, Riverside, and Santa Maria-Santa Barbara.
The most popular out of state major metros that Malibu residents searched were: Las Vegas; Dallas; Phoenix; Portland, OR; and Miami.
“We want to get the word out because some Malibu residents moved out of state and we want to let them know that the rebuilding is going on and hope they return,” says Riggins.