A state bill exempting Altadena from state housing laws that allow denser development is igniting a larger debate about how the community should rebuild after the Eaton fire.
Senate Bill 1090, the Keep Altadena Lands in Altadena Hands Act, would prevent corporate developers from using existing state land-use laws such as SB 9 and SB 1123 to buy up burned lots in the Eaton fire area, which local advocates fear will change the makeup of the town.
The bill, introduced by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, D-Pasadena, and Assemblymember John Harabedian, D-Pasadena, will go through two committee votes in the state Assembly on Wednesday. A group of local advocates and Eaton fire survivors will travel to Sacramento ahead of the vote to advocate for the bill.
SB 9 allows up to four housing units on single-family-zoned land and SB 1123 expanded SB 684 to allow the subdivision of vacant single-family-zoned lots into as many as 10 parcels for residential development.
SB 1090 would provide an exemption from SB 9 and SB 1123 being applied in the Altadena area based on ZIP code to make sure it applies to the entire community.
After the January 2025 wildfires, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order that exempted very high fire hazard severity zones from SB 9. SB 1123 was already barred from use in high fire-hazard zones.
Because the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection designated nearly all of Pacific Palisades as a high fire severity zone, the community was exempted from both state laws, while only a small portion of Altadena – a sliver along the foothills near the San Gabriel Mountains – received the same exemption.
Exempting Altadena raises the question of whether the unincorporated Los Angeles County community should be obligated to rebuild with a focus on affordable housing amid a statewide and national housing crisis.
Community organizer and Beautiful Altadena podcast host Shawna Dawson Beer stressed that developers have been buying single-family lots from financially struggling fire survivors and then building as many parcels on that lot as possible to sell it at a higher price, effectively pricing out Altadenans from returning.
“It’s very easy for people to make this a NIMBY conversation and reduce it to that, but if you really understand Altadena, then you understand that we have always had an incredible diversity of housing stock,” Dawson Beer said. “What the community is asking for is very simply: fairness and equal protection, and to be given some time to actually rebuild.”
Dawson Beer said that the original purpose of the state housing bills were for urban infill – to address vacant lots in densely populated areas, not communities like Altadena.
“These bills were not written to become urban planning doctrines to replace 9,000 structures that were lost overnight,” she said. “Those are people’s homes and businesses.”
Ahead of the vote, Altadena Recovery Watch, a local fire survivor advocacy group, is urging residents to call committee members to vote in favor of the bill and to call the governor’s office to issue an executive order exempting the Eaton fire disaster recovery area from SB 9 and SB 1123.
Altadena Recovery Watch also identified every developer who has utilized SB 1123 to apply for a lot purchase as an outside corporate investor, not a returning resident.
About 200 community members gathered at an emergency Altadena Town Council meeting on June 23 to discuss the urgency behind SB 1090. Residents decried developers coming in to maximize profits while survivors struggled to return and the community’s unequal protection from state laws.
“Any jury that saw us defending our homes in the burn zone would not say that we are not in a high fire-risk area,” resident Beth Andrews said at the meeting to rapturous applause. “So why are we not going to the Attorney General on these two points of discrimination, the inequity between the Palisades and Altadena? Why are our representatives not lining up at Newsom’s door on these two issues?”
Katie Clark, co-founder of the Altadena Tenants Union and board treasurer of the Altadena Community Land Trust, said she is campaigning for an amendment to SB 1090 that would allow community-led affordable housing projects, provided they meet certain conditions, including serving low- and moderate-income families and prioritizing fire survivors. The projects would also be required to maintain affordability covenants – legal agreements that keep housing affordable for lower-income residents – for at least 55 years.
“It’s very easy for people to make this a NIMBY conversation and reduce it to that, but if you really understand Altadena, then you understand that we have always had an incredible diversity of housing stock. — Shawna Dawson Beer
The Altadena Community Land Trust is planning an affordable bungalow court project west of Lake Avenue, and the Greenline Housing Foundation is preparing affordable housing projects on three lots in West Altadena. Clark said those projects, along with other planned developments, rely on SB 9 and could be delayed until 2030 without the amendment.
The bill can be amended up to three days before Aug. 31 – the Legislature deadline to pass bills.
Clark said she hopes the amendment can help restore Altadena to “gentle density” – neighborhoods consisting of mostly single-family homes and smaller buildings with four to six units, rather than big multi-family buildings.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger will also be traveling to Sacramento to advocate for the bill. Barger made the argument that “disaster recovery and housing production are not mutually exclusive,” and that Altadena’s rebuild is already contributing to L.A. County’s housing goals, according to a statement from Helen Chavez, a spokesperson for Barger.
“At Supervisor Barger’s direction, Los Angeles County modified its rebuilding regulations to allow homeowners to construct and occupy ADUs before rebuilding their primary residence. We anticipate that nearly half of the rebuilding properties in Altadena will include an ADU, creating additional housing opportunities while helping multigenerational families remain together and return to their properties more quickly,” the statement read. “[SB 1090] provides a temporary safeguard that allows longtime residents a fair opportunity to return home while Los Angeles County continues advancing housing production.”
Anish Saraiya, director of Altadena Recovery for Barger’s office, affirmed during the emergency meeting that Altadena is not a “NIMBY” community, pointing to the community’s previous support of the West San Gabriel Valley Area Plan. The West San Gabriel Valley Area Plan, approved by Los Angeles County one month before the Eaton fire, increased multifamily zoning in commercial corridors.
However, housing advocates argue that SB 1090 would limit homeowners’ options in financing reconstruction by selling off marginal land or adding additional homes on their property.
Matthew Lewis, communications director of California YIMBY, said that homeowners rebuilding in a high fire severity zone face the rising costs of inflation, stricter building codes and higher insurance costs.
“In many cases, building a duplex is the only way for owners to be able to finance their primary residence because they’re going to sell the duplex, or they’re going to rent it out, and the income can qualify in their construction loan application,” he said. “What 1090 would do is it basically forecloses the option for owners in Altadena to keep their properties unless they’re rich.”
Lewis also cited a Los Angeles Times analysis that determined only 38% of houses that burned down in California’s five most destructive wildfires from 2017 to 2020 had been rebuilt as of September 2025. While Altadena is not equipped for urban density, it should become as affordable and abundant as possible as it rebuilds, he said.
“The question is not about is it going to change, because that’s already done. Nature took care of that,” Lewis said. “The question is, do they not want it to change back to a place where people can live, and if they make it hard enough to build housing, as we’ve seen in the rest of California, that’s the change they’ll end up with: nobody living there.”
In an interview, Pérez affirmed that the bill is “not a ban on density,” but rather meant to address resident concerns of developers splitting lots into 10 different parcels. She added that the bill was also written to ease evacuation routes in the case of future disasters.
Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network, said that as the community rebuilds, she hopes to see more mixed-use development with housing above retail and density focused in Altadena’s commercial corridors along Fair Oaks and Lake avenues.
“We have to have more housing in L.A. County, but in this case, to be just making a patchwork in a community of single-family homes with really ugly, extremely dense housing – 10 to one dropped in the middle in a patchwork fashion, without any planning – that is not the kind of community that urban planners try to design,” Chen said.
As the community continues to face challenges during the rebuild, Dawson Beer expressed her desire for it to be led by the residents of Altadena.
“Recovery should be led by survivors – not by speculation,” Dawson Beer said. “It cannot be easier for outside developers to buy and build our lots than it is for survivors to get home.”
If both committees approve SB 1090, it will then go before the full state Assembly.
Sam Mulick is a correspondent with the Southern California News Group.