Los Angeles County Tuesday, July 15, launched a partnership with an artificial intelligence software that it says will speed up the process of approving permits for rebuilding homes destroyed by the Eaton and Palisades fires.
The partnership with Archistar will begin with a beta phase where the county will be inviting property owners to help train the AI to accurately review rebuild projects for compliance with county zoning code.
“This means that the L.A. County Planning team will review Archistar’s results before they are returned to the property owner, which will take up to 10 business days,” the county said in a statement.
Once the county completes the beta phase and has “a high degree of confidence” in the AI model the county planning department will stop reviewing the AI’s results before they are returned to the property owner.
“Instead, the L.A. County Planning team will review Archistar’s results along with the application and plans submitted by the property owner, which we anticipate will significantly reduce the average initial L.A. County Zoning Code compliance review time from the current five business days,” a county statement read.
According to a county dashboard, the average time it takes a permit to be issued in the Eaton fire area is 55 days and 46 days for the Palisades area.
“I am hopeful that this will be an important tool in our tool box that will get the permits approved at a much faster rate,” Supervisor Kathryn Barger said during Monday’s community meeting.
Residents can sign up for the AI pilot by signing up online. Residents with impacted homes in the single-family residential zone in unincorporated Altadena or Sunset Mesa communities are invited to sign up for the pilot program.
The introduction of AI into the process is part of “LA County Forward: Blueprint for Rebuilding,” announced last week by Barger.
Earlier this year, the nonprofit Steadfast LA partnered with Archistar to bring the plan checking to the city to help with rebuild plan approvals.
Included in a set of executive orders to speed up the approval process, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signed an executive directive for the city to explore the use of AI.