Eighteen months after the Palisades Fire destroyed at least 700 structures along Malibu's Pacific Coast Highway, just 61 homes are being rebuilt, and homeowners say city permitting, state regulations, and insurance gaps have turned recovery into a second disaster.
The fire broke out on January 7, 2025. Nearly 600 of the structures lost were single-family homes, according to figures then-Mayor Marianne Riggins provided to Realtor.com. As of late July 2026, the City of Malibu has issued 1,076 permits for damages, repairs, debris removal, and structures along PCH, but only 88 of those are for new home construction. The gap between destruction and rebuilding is staggering, and the people who lived there say the government response explains why.
Matt Greenberg bought a beachfront fixer-upper in Malibu in 2023. He spent more than a year fighting through the city's permitting process for a remodel. On the morning of January 7, 2025, he finally got his permits. That night, the Palisades Fire burned his home to the ground.
He did not try again. Greenberg told the California Post he was one of the first homeowners to sell his lot rather than rebuild.
"It's like burned in my brain. We were literally going to crack some champagne and the whole thing, the morning of the fire, we got the permits and it burned down that night."
Greenberg said the prospect of starting over with the city was more than he could stomach. He called the permitting process "an absolute nightmare", slow, expensive, and drawn out. Add the cost of rebuilding, the physical constraints of construction on a narrow coastal highway, and the risk of PCH itself eroding, and the math stopped working.
Carl Randall's family has owned their Malibu home since 1966. He is one of the first beachfront homeowners to secure a permit and begin rebuilding. When the article was published, he had recently started drilling for caissons, reinforced concrete foundation pillars sunk deep into the ground.
His estimated cost to rebuild: roughly $7 million.
Most of his neighbors, Randall said, carried insurance through the California FAIR Plan, the state's insurer of last resort for high-risk properties. Its maximum payout is $3 million, less than half what Randall says a rebuild actually costs.
"I'm building for about $7 million. They can't afford that, nobody can afford that because most everybody here had the California Fair Plan, which is a maximum $3 million insurance."
Randall estimated about 200 homeowners remain undecided, caught between wanting to rebuild and doubting whether the city, the state, and their bank accounts will let them. He put the number actively charging ahead at 20 to 30.
Even for someone willing to spend the money, the regulatory burden is enormous. Randall listed the specialists a beachfront homeowner must hire: a coastal engineer, a structural engineer, a civil engineer, a septic engineer. Each runs separate reports. All of those reports must then be reconciled with the city's own plans, planners, and approval processes.
"All the engineers you have to hire if you're on the beach, I have a coastal engineer, you've got structural, civil, septic engineer, you've got all these different people you have to hire and they have to run the reports, and then you have to smash all those together and fit that into the city's plans and go through all their planners and the processes."
Randall said the permitting process alone would typically take five to six years. He completed his in about one year, which he considers fast. He hopes to be living in his new home within 18 months.
Construction conditions on PCH add another layer. The highway is narrow, and workers operate feet from passing traffic. Randall asked the city to push the road back 10 feet to give his crew space. The city granted five.
"Literally every day I've got to stand and protect the guys from getting run over as they're working."
Danny Smith lost his beachfront home in the fire. He sold the property and bought another further down the beach. He is now running for Malibu City Council, and he is not shy about what he sees as a failure of government at every level.
Smith directed sharp criticism at the city's public messaging, arguing officials are spending time marketing a recovery that does not exist.
"I don't think we should be spending our time marketing, the problem is obvious. It's obvious to the public, you drive in from Malibu to the East and it looks like Pompeii and it's going to continue to look like death for decades if we don't speed things up."
Smith credited Governor Gavin Newsom for acting quickly in the fire's immediate aftermath, streamlining permitting with the California Coastal Commission and waiving requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act, a state law that often adds months or years to construction approvals. But Smith said that urgency has faded.
"I don't know where his attention is these days. I think he has bigger political ambitions. We're still here, and we are not anywhere close to recovery. I wish the conversations with the Governor's office that were frequent last spring, and summer, were continuing now with the same urgency, and I don't feel that they are."
Smith also pointed to unresolved questions about septic systems and sewers as a major obstacle. Many PCH properties rely on septic systems, and the cost and regulatory uncertainty around replacing or upgrading them have paralyzed homeowners. A proposed sewer assessment district is expected to go before affected property owners for a vote later in the fall, but no specific date has been set.
"One of the things that would help get these homes back in Malibu would be a sewer line where one has never existed before."
Smith acknowledged that the city has taken some steps, disaster rebuild ordinances, an expedited online portal, dedicated staff, but he attributed those measures to community pressure, not initiative.
"I would say all those things they are citing were residential driven, and we're glad that they have implemented them to one extent or another, but in the absence of community outrage none of that stuff would've happened, sadly."
Glenn Dexter's father built the family's Malibu home in 1959 for $35,000. The fire took it. Dexter said his biggest concern is the cost of rebuilding the seawall that protects beachfront properties from the ocean, and the narrow construction windows available to do the work.
He told the California Post he has been torn between selling and rebuilding, but as he moves closer to obtaining a building permit, he is leaning toward staying.
"That was probably my number one reason I was considering selling, but now I'm starting to get closer to getting my building permit, now I'm leaning toward trying to rebuild. But, I am worried about the City of Malibu, they really should get in there and get everybody to handle their wall. If we miss another window, it's another year from now to work on that."
Dexter's dilemma captures the bind facing hundreds of Malibu homeowners. The emotional pull of a family home built decades ago collides with a regulatory and financial reality that makes rebuilding punishing for anyone who is not wealthy.
A City of Malibu spokesperson pushed back on the characterization that the city is dragging its feet. The city pointed to disaster rebuild ordinances that streamline approvals, a dedicated online expedited rebuild submittal portal, and staff available to walk homeowners through the process one-on-one.
"The City of Malibu is committed to helping residents rebuild from the devastating Palisades Fire as quickly, safely, and efficiently as possible. Through our dedicated staff providing one-on-one assistance, streamlined processes, innovative technology, and ongoing community engagement, the City continues to remove barriers and provide personalized support throughout every step of the rebuilding process."
The numbers tell a different story. Out of at least 700 structures destroyed, nearly 600 of them single-family homes, 61 are being rebuilt. Eighty-eight permits for new construction have been issued out of more than a thousand total permits. That means, a year and a half after the fire, roughly one in ten destroyed homes has even started the rebuilding process.
Greenberg, who chose to sell, said the fire and its aftermath have changed the character of the community. What was once a stretch of beach where more than half the residents were full-time neighbors has become, in his view, something else entirely.
"Malibu's turned into this playground for the ultra wealthy. We were a certain little enclave where over half of the stretch of the beach were full-time residents or close to it."
Randall, who is rebuilding, described the state's regulatory apparatus bluntly.
"The state has a lot of regulations for us and then we live on the coast, so it's even more."
When a natural disaster levels a community, the government's job is to clear the path so people can come home. In Malibu, 18 months later, the path is still full of engineers, agencies, permits, and price tags, and the people who lived there are the ones paying for it.
