Rebuilding Altadena: The Work of Building Back

- Good afternoon everyone. I'm Richard Green. I am director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, and this is Lusk Perspectives, a podcast where we have conversations about real estate and real estate adjacent matters. Today I'm very happy to be joined by Joel Bryant. Joel is a real estate development and construction professional who has built a variety of things, everything from ADUs to multifamily housing projects, and he does the whole process from beginning to completion. We are also very happy to say that he is a professor for us, an adjunct faculty member teaching 510, which is a course that focuses on real estate practice principles and he does it really, really well. And the name of his company is Bronzeville Inc. Which is a relatively new company, and we're just thrilled to have him. So Joel, and we're going to talk about rebuilding in the aftermath of last year's horrible fires with a particular focus on Altadena today. Joel, thank you so much for joining us.

- Richard, thanks for having me. Each time I talk about what we're doing in Altadena, it helps me better understand 'cause it is very heavy but very necessary that we approach it in a proactive, thoughtful way. So I'm honored to be here and I'm looking forward to the conversation.

- Great, so Joel, I always start by asking our guests to just tell us a little bit about their journey, how they have gotten to where they are right now. So Joel, if you wouldn't mind sharing a few minutes with us about that.

- Sure, my journey started with a discovery of the field of urban planning in 1991 through a friend who explained what she was doing in an urban planning curriculum at a university here in Southern California. And it sounded like, I'd never heard of it, and it sounded like a bucket of all the things that I was interested in, geography, economics, design, politics. And so I began as an urban planner and worked my first few years in the public sector for Southern California Association of Governments, which is more of a think tank, SCAG, we call it, terrible acronym, but loved the experience working there. And then I moved to Metro at the time when RTD and LACTC, which are acronyms for the agency that operated the buses and the one agency that did the transportation planning and they merged into Metro and so I was working there at the time that I discovered this program at USC that focused on real estate development. And I failed to mention there was a gentleman at Cal Poly when I did urban planning named Rick Wilson, who described who real estate developers do. And I was always intrigued at that point. Anyway, in the late 90s, I applied to and got into USC and earned my MRED degree, Master in Real Estate Development. And at that time, I was working as a land use planner and then eventually a redevelopment project manager in the city of Burbank. And couple that with my civic involvement in Pasadena, I became aware of a development opportunity in a neighborhood in northwest Pasadena. And this was before this gentrification machine if you will, had come into this area. And with that, I partnered with another former MRED, and we formed a company, anyway, over the, we did one project while we were both working in the public sector and then got some capital to go out on our own. And that was really the last time I've worked, you know, for someone else. And from 2000, from the year 2000 through 2011, I was developing market rate and forest sale housing. The one thing about 2011, it was also kind of us coming out of the Great Recession. In that Great Recession, the real estate development opportunities dried up. And Richard, you may recall, the tool we had called redevelopment went away due to a court case and eventually a decision was made to disband redevelopment. So contracting, which I have learned from some really good mentors over the years became my mainstay. And from the 2010-11, all the way through 2024, the focus of my work was on construction of multifamily projects as a contractor, not as a developer. And I did both rental and for sale. During that time, I also took on a few ADUs and custom homes for family and friends and which will lead me into the Altadena conversation later. I also had the fortune of being on the Pasadena City Council in 2013. So I got to see what decisions were like in the rooms of council. I filled in for Chris Holden when he got elected for 41st Assembly seat. And there was a six-month timeframe left on that. So I jumped in and finished the term and eventually a gentleman named John Kennedy took over. But that journey led me into essentially where we are today, and particularly this life changing event that took place on January 7th and 8th, 2025.

- So I think that it would help. And I know our audience is going to be familiar with January 7th, 2025, and the destruction that was wreaked in both Altadena and in the Palisades. And the reason we're focusing on Altadena today is because that's where you're doing your work. But just remind us a little bit about the scope of the disaster before we get into what you're up to now in terms of moving forward with rebuilding.

- Yeah, so in Altadena, by the way, Rich, I failed to mention, this is where I grew up. It's where my mother and father felt comfortable buying a home in the 1960s. And up until 1994, my wife and I lived in Altadena. Now we're down the road in Pasadena. On January 7th, 6,000, according to the data that I tracked, about 6,700 homes burned in one 24-hour period. That's most of the single, that's more than 50% of the single family housing stock in the town. And that, I remember January 7th being a really windy day. In fact, in my phone, I have video of how the wind was blowing. I live where I can see Mount Wilson and I'm in the vicinity of, for those who know of Washington Boulevard and Elano and that was in the afternoon, filming a very heavy windstorm and just thinking, wow, this is really strong wind. And then to think 24 hours later from that very moment, we lost 6,700 houses and a bunch of other businesses and churches and schools, et cetera. So at that moment, I could recall calling my cousin, whom I'm building his house as we speak, we're framing right now called this real proud, strong rock of the family, about 10:00 AM on January 7th. And here's this grown man answering the phone in tears. I get choked up thinking about it and it kind of, it shook me up. And then about 24 hours later, he and his wife called me and told me that you are gonna, you, I'm quoting them, you're gonna build a home back and you can't tell us no. And that was my response to her, her name is, we call her Terry, was, yes ma'am, I'm going to do that. I didn't know how to respond to the fire initially. I didn't lose a home, but I lost a chunk of where I grew up, my memories, my sister lost her home, we're getting ready to start construction on that next month. And so that moment was important for me 'cause I decided that the multifamily projects that I was working on more from a entitlement standpoint, that I was gonna wind those down over the next few months and pour, P-O-U-R, pour myself into Altadena. And that's, you know, I had formed my company Bronzeville two years prior to the fire and that was kind of a turning point for me.

- So let me ask one more thing by way of background, and I almost hate to talk about something as anidine as government or a governance in the aftermath of what you just described. But I think it's important for people to know that Altadena is actually not an incorporated place. And so it's governed by Los Angeles County, am I correct about that?

- Yes, that is correct. It's unincorporated LA County. Two times that I can recall the citizens of Altadena have voted not to be annexed into Pasadena. So it is intentionally unincorporated. And I can go on and on about the lack of sidewalks and street lights.

- Is it ever considered, just curious, has it ever just thought about incorporating as its own city or is that not a feasible thing to do?

- That I don't know, I'm certain there's been people up there who wanted to, 'cause when you think about Altadena and this town of 45,000 roughly, that's tucked up in the mountains with amazing views of the LA Basin and even the Pacific Ocean sometimes, I feel like some people say, well, the people who govern us are in down there. And you can literally point to downtown and see it from many parts of Altadena. But the five people down there govern what we do. We don't have so-called local control. So I've never seen an organized effort to do so. I'm sure it's been talked about, but for certain the annexation into Pasadena...

- No go.

- No go.

- Okay. All right. So now let's get into talking about, so, you know, a lot of people, they have raw feelings. They understandably say, I am going to do something about this in the week or two in the aftermath of something as tragic as this. But that doesn't mean everybody is able to execute. And you have been executing. So describe to us the steps that you took after you made that commitment that you were going to rebuild for your family as well as the town more broadly.

- So coming from the field of real estate development and working with developers, investors, et cetera, you know that to successfully visualize a project and see it through, you almost have to, it's a startup business. Informally, every project is its own entity. Early on in the fire realized that I need to explain to everyone who I'm involved with. That you now have to almost become a mini real estate developer. And you have to become an overseer of money, of people, of time, if you want to rebuild your home. And there have been people who've sold and left. There have been people who have done, who've decided just to stay put. I'm still meeting people, Richard, today, one year and roughly three weeks after the fire that are just now deciding that they want to rebuild. Haven't done anything, but we'll get to that in a moment. The approach that I came up with, and I actually created a diagram that Michelle, my wife, helped me with to explain to everyone how we're gonna, how we're gonna do this and how we should approach this. And again, January 7th, windy day in Altadena, Pasadena, 24 hours later, we have $6 billion worth of damage. You know, and how do you come back from that? And so, in my mind, the first thing we need to do is establish with each of the people that I'm building for that they're committed to doing it and, you know, to breathe, clear their mind. And if you're trusting in me, let me lead you through this. And keep in mind, these are folks who don't even know an architect, don't even know a civil engineer, wouldn't know who to call if they wanted to test the soil, the health of their soil. And so I, in most cases, I took a group of, you know, I had an architect in mind and I took that client and got 'em together and myself, and really Michelle, my wife, who's an interior designer, we sat down with some very cooperative architects. And I have three of 'em that I kind of circle amongst. And perhaps a fourth one's gonna be joining the circle. And we sit down and help these people who've never built a home. You know, I mean, you know how it goes, Richard. A lot of people take 10 years to remodel their bathroom or kitchen. Now they're gonna rebuild a whole darn house. And I like when they get excited about it, given the tragedy of what they've gone through and what they've lost. But now you see that they're kind of excited about this new start and that part is very satisfying. And so, and interrupt me at any time.

- No, no, no, this is really good. So please, keep going.

- And so we get 'em together, we have a kickoff meeting and we tell the client, again, in this case, family and friends, I have a few people who I've met in this process for the first time that I'm building for, but they were referred through family and friends. So you get 'em together, kind of calm 'em down and we talk about what they want to do. And there's this fork in the road here, in this rebuilding process called like for like, or not like for like, most people want back their home. They just want back their home. They said, I want what I had and I want it right now. But it's funny, once you start sitting down with them, you'll say, well, you used to wash your clothes in the garage, wouldn't you want a laundry room in the house? And yeah, yeah, I want that, I want that. Oh, I want a kitchen island. And they start thinking about the things that they see in modern floor plans in 2026 that didn't exist in 1946 when the home was built. And the homes, I'm rebuilding one home that was actually built in 1924, I think that's the oldest one. And it was a Spanish.

- So I mean, a 1924 home is not gonna conform to building codes anyway, right? And we've had two major overhauls, at least in building codes, one in the early 1990s, one around 2007, 2008. So I don't want to divert where you're going with this, but when I hear a 1924 house, I would think it would be legally impossible to rebuild a 1924 house.

- Yes. Because the windows don't meet egress, of course, you have the fire sprinkler. And from a standpoint of livability, the closets are, you know, this big, the driveway is this wide. And so that is the oldest house to, I'm rebuilding a house that was built in the 60s and it's more of a suburban tract home. And so in all of the cases, we're trying to vet out all of the creature comforts that people may want coupled with what the code requirements are and crafting something that they can also pay for. Most people are paying for this rebuild through insurance proceeds. And once we have a design, you know, one of the very first things I do, we do a survey and a preliminary title report. That's first, because that survey, survey shows, but the survey identifies the boundaries of the property because in a place like Altadena, a lot of fences and walls and even driveways were built off a handshake and a hug and a beer. People weren't feuding about getting a survey to make sure you're not encroaching one inch onto my, you know, it just seemed people were a little different. And so what we find, I have one property I'm rebuilding, the neighbor's wall is six feet onto my client's property, grateful that the encroacher is understanding and is cooperating. But we get that survey done and regardless of who the architect is, we need to know what we're working with and with the purpose of the prelim title report is to identify any easements that people may not be aware of. And there's a lot of easements in these older towns, mostly utility easements. And then there's some situations where there's a front home and a back home. The back home is a, you know, it's a be simple owner who has an easement over the front, front house's property. And so we get all that identified and then get the architect going. And as soon as we know square footage, I give 'em a preliminary cost estimate 'cause everyone wants to know what it's gonna cost to build. There's some builders going around town saying they could build at 350 a square foot. I don't believe it. And if they are, it's not a full home, there's some modular and some prefabs that perhaps are coming in at that price. But the prefabs and the modulars I like are more than it costs me to stick frame these homes. But the interesting thing is, once we get into, once we get into plan check and have a vetted set of plans, we'll then price it with actual subcontractor bids. And I'm finding out that my, you know, the interesting thing is I'm coming in pretty close to what the actual subs are bidding.

- So let me, because this is something I wanted to cover. So this is a natural place to do it, the plan check process. Tell us a little bit about that, is it smooth, is it frustrating? So I hear people say they can't get people on the phone. So I wanna interrupt your narrative here to talk specifically about that part of the process. And maybe just tell, I mean 90% of our audience will know, but tell people a little bit what plan check is too.

- Plan check is submitting the plans that the architect and the structural engineer prepare so that we can obtain a building permit and get to building. It also allows the contractor to come up with a more precise cost to rebuild. Because at that point, once you have a thorough set of plans, you can give it to your framer, your concrete sub, plumber, electrician, et cetera. But the plan check process for me, for Joel, has been fairly smooth. And I credit a lot of that to architects that know what they're doing, to architects that care about designing buildings that are being rebuilt in Altadena who go the extra mile of going to the Altadena One-Stop, which is at 464 West Woodbury and sitting down with the planning department, which is there, and then with the building department and really obtaining an understanding of what they expect. My very first project, which I'll be complete with construction on by the end of April approximately, we had our building permit in about 58 days from initial submittal of plans. And that includes a correction that the architect had to do and resubmit. Now data from January 27th shows that there are 2,800 applications in, at the time when we submitted in late April, there were not, there was probably one quarter of that, if that. But the plan check process for me, I haven't had the frustrations that I've had before. For example, I did a project in LA County, unincorporated Altadena about a year prior to the fire helping a friend. And it took seven months to get a building permit for a very small garage redo, her garage burned. And we obtained a permit for that. Took a long time. This has been a pleasant process for me. Now there's somebody that's down the street that is cursing and will have a 180 degree, 180 degree opposite position on that. But I'm just gonna tell you how my experience has been. And Edison, they're involved in this 'cause you have to get a meter spot. They've been fine. And I think it matters to go to the people that are involved in this and meet them and put a face to the name, even though everything has to be submitted through an online portal called Epic. I think it is important, I do get frustrated with Epic sometimes, the portal. That's probably my biggest frustration, learning how to navigate it. But coming from a development standpoint where I've done projects in Pasadena and as you know, Pasadena can be a difficult place to get projects approved.

- Yeah, there are contractors who've done work for me at my house and they said they are never going to do work in Pasadena, it's nothing against me. It was getting permits to do what, and it was like putting a pipe, basically replacing our sewer line to the trunk infrastructure. The guy said it should take two days to get that permit. And it took considerably longer than that.

- You know how Pasadena is and having been through that, I don't know, maybe I'm kind of, you know, strange and beat up to embrace this. But I kind of embraced the challenge of the obstacle of trying to get these permits. And I'd rather make, I'd rather have it really easy than difficult. But we just, I attribute, again, the success we've had so far in plan checking, getting permits to the architect and in this case, his ability to submit a complete set of plans to track it, to make sure that things like the water letter and the electrical application, you just dump 'em into a folder on the portal. And he's really good at doing that. And he and I kind of tag team on that. Sometimes I've had a lot of conversations with people rebuilding in Altadena with whom I'm not rebuilding for, but you cross paths with them and they express their frustration. And I have found a few times the designer, architect, whatever, is blaming the county on something that really they're not responding. There were corrections that the architect did not address. So they're putting it on the county. Most of these people rebuilding, they're not developers or real estate people. They're teachers, nurses, retired, civil service workers. They don't even know what to ask. They don't even feel like it. They're just believing that when they're designer says that the county's holding them up, they take it at, you know, that that's what's happening. I have found that sometimes it's the designer.

- Yeah, I still can't help contrast that with Japan. I took students to Japan a couple of years ago when we met with planning officials in Yokohama. And I got my favorite answer ever when I asked a question of a planning official, which is how long does it take to get a permit after submission? And his answer was, if you know what you're doing, one week, if you don't know what you're doing, two weeks. I mean, everything is very transparent, everybody.

- Is that a function of them having the staff to respond or the applicant doing a really good job?

- I think it's a couple of things. I think one is there is very, there are very standardized plans in Japan and if you follow the template, you're going to get approved. And so it's a reason some people will look at new construction, particularly of housing in Japan and say it's kind of banal, but it does enable them to get stuff built very quickly. So it's sort of, once you've gone through the process, you know exactly what it is that you need to do in order to get approval. The second thing is, I do think that they have likely more planning staff per capita in Japan, though I don't know if that's true, but there is also a, just the Japanese government in general, there's a ethos of customer service that is I think, very different from what we're used to in the US. The other thing is that I read a really interesting piece about how in Dallas they're using AI to evaluate plans and to whether they conform or not. And that's enabled that city, which is, you know, a big complicated city, to speed things up. So there, according to the article I read, the median time for a, and it's clear single family, not anything big and complicated, is about nine days from the time that it's, but again, everything is so standardized, I think that helps a lot. So you know what the widget is supposed to look like, but it is a widget.

- Yeah, I think here, we have such a diversity of what people want in the design and you know, I feel like the county is by them setting up this One-Stop on Woodbury, which I understand they're gonna be there for at least five years. I think that has helped.

- That's an important step, yeah.

- Yeah, the county has brought the process to the people. You used to have to go, when you got permits for building in Altadena, you would have to go to Arcadia, to the field office on Baldwin or public works on Fremont, South Pasadena. But they've brought all the resources here and on Tuesday and Thursday, they even bring the assessor over. All of them are there. But again, if you haven't built, you can go in there and kind of go, where do I start? And I think we in the industry take it for granted. We think it's simple. And for me, the process of who I need to go to is simple because I've done it enough times. But that is a bit of probably a biasness that I'm thinking everybody else should understand that. And I've had to remind myself starting this process, people that I know that lived a good life, living their best life, retired. I'd say my average age of person I'm building for is in their 60s, but they don't even know an architect. They know what an architect does, but they're even kind of nervous talking with an architect. So that's where I've gotten architect-client together, and the right architect 'cause not all architects are the right architect here, even some of the better ones and gotten them to where there's a relationship and they feel comfortable and we can move the design along. There's a few people I'm building for that already had plans designed, in fact, a few of them already have a building permit, so I'm gonna jump in and get them going next month.

- That's great. Okay, so we've sort of covered plan check and now, let's move on to the, but I thought it was important to interrupt the narrative there and spend a little time talking about that. So plan check happens, what's next?

- So plan check happens and then plans get approved and plans get approved and we all get an email, architect, client, me 'cause we should all be linked in through Epic. And the county is waiving the permit fees, building permit fees as long as you're building like for like.

- And excuse me, Joel, how is that defined?

- Like for like in a simplified way is you're building what you had before the fire with a 10% variance and the 10% is bigger than what you had. If you had 2000 square feet and you built 1800, that's not like for like, and that like for like designation, you can do that, but most people wanna add square footage. So if you have 2000 square feet, you can build 2200 and make it like for like. The interesting thing is was your garage in the back, in the front, because there's been situations where people have had 2000 feet detached garage in the back. They want it rebuilt 2000 feet attached garage out front. Depending on the day of the week and the planner, sometimes it's been like for like, other times, it has not. And what we have found the textbook answer, the code answer is the garage needs to be recessed back behind the front door, but it can be attached. So this like for like definition also is the height of the building. If it was 25 feet before, you know, you can go 27 and a half feet or what have you. The interesting thing is if a house was at a three foot setback on the side property line, which does not meet today's development standards and you want to go like for like, you can put it back at that three foot setback, even though today it could be as much as 10 feet depending on the width of your lot. And the benefit of like for like, they prioritize and expedite your plan approval process. And so once the permits, I know we're talking permits now, not plan check, but once plan check is completed, permits are pulled and we then schedule kind of the mobilization and the start date of construction. And I'm usually building within 45 days of permit being pulled or permit being obtained.

- So, you know, when I think about one of the hardest things real estate developers do, and I don't think many people think about it that much, it is just assembling the people and the material at the right time so that the sequencing works and that you're not wasting time, you're not wasting anybody's time. And that's a hard thing to do in the best of times, right? Is making sure you have a Caterpillar when you need a Caterpillar, making sure that your sheet rock is there when you need the sheet rock, making sure the framers are there when it's time for the framers to do what they do and the roofers are there when they're there, et cetera. But of course, we have had a major shock in both materials and labor markets in the last year or at least a shock, maybe not major in terms of tariffs and their impact on material availability, not just cost and also labor. So how has that process gone for you?

- You're saying the buyout of the subcontracts and the readiness of them to get in there?

- Yeah.

- And so, you know, coming outta USC and working in the field, I was always trained and thought of myself as a production builder, not a necessarily custom builder. And most of what I did over the past some odd years has been in a production standpoint, as I mentioned, I've done a few custom homes and ADUs for family and friends. I typically don't do remodels. There are lots of other subs out there that are better than me in remodeling. 'Cause that's kind of, it's still construction, but it's a different group of folks and a different approach. So the subs that I'm using here in Altadena are the same ones I was working on before the fire. Now, a few of them I've been working on for 20 plus years.

- Okay.

- So material wise we've seen a little bump up in lumber. We've seen a pretty big increase in Romex, which the electricians use. But the percentage that Romex is of the electrician's bid is so small. It's not like an electrician's bid is going from being feasible to non feasible. In other words, I haven't seen a tariff or a material price increase that has pushed a project to an area of not being buildable, that could happen. And everyone's kind of on edge about that. From a labor standpoint, I mean, we know that especially in trades like plaster and drywall, that it's estimated that up to 40% of those workers are undocumented. And you know, I hire, I don't self perform on anything other than the office function of building and the superintendent and the people in the field. All the companies I hire are licensed, bonded. But I don't question when I bring in my drywall or plaster what those guys that are doing. There are guys that I've recognized for at least 10 years, I don't know their status, but when ICE comes into Altadena and they did last week and scare. I mean these are not what I've been, what somebody else told me, this is a fact. My framer had guys leave a job two weeks ago because they were concerned about this ICE group being down the street. And that, you know, it's real and there are concerns. I haven't had a site shut down. I think single family homes are not the most, you know, there's 640 houses in rebuild right now. And I just think going to one site where they're building a hundred apartments perhaps would be more of a--

- I hate to use the word efficient, but yeah.

- Yeah, you're right. I'm trying to look for a word that doesn't give them any credit for this.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- You know what I mean.

- Yeah, it's so economies of scale.

- Yes.

- And whatever you're doing, whether it's something you like or something you don't.

- Yes. And so labor material, the subs have been able to keep up with the schedule.

- So they have been able to keep up with the schedule.

- Yes, I haven't had any delays because work crews didn't show up. The delays that I had on the first home were because a title 24 report was different than what the plan showed. And we had to spend three or four days to rectify the installation before we put the drywall up. So that's a delay on our side. But I haven't had any crews or people power, manpower, woman power holdups or delays.

- The one thing I have heard is electric, and maybe this is not as bad, but a year ago I was hearing getting electric panels was very difficult.

- Yeah, those cutler panels, there is a delay in them, more I've experienced on the multifamily side, like when I rehabbed a 12 unit apartment last year in South Pasadena. And we had a panel and a main shutoff that took about three weeks longer than we had anticipated. But in the case of my jobs, you know, I'm breaking ground and signing up the electrician right away. And the electrician I work with, I tend to keep the same trades because, you know, they know where to throw the ball for me to catch it and vice versa. I don't have to tell 'em.

- So about how long do you think before your first house, first rebuild is finished?

- I'm shooting for April 30th.

- April 30th.

- April 30th, I'll be wrapping up, you know, bar no labor or material issues. But we're hanging drywall, the roof is done. All our underground connections are done. We're wrapping the exterior. So we're looking at April 30th and it doesn't, the forecast doesn't show any rain like we had in November and December. So yeah, we're getting ready. That family that I'm building for was on Good Morning America last year, and they come back to do a follow up right before Christmas. So there, it's a friend of mine, her mom who's in her 70s and they're currently living in Fontana and they are great clients and it's truly an honor and a pleasure to build for 'em.

- So are you, so you've done ADUs are on any of your rebuilds, are people wanting to put ADUs while they're going to the bother of, that's the wrong word, but you know what I mean? While they're having to go through the, what is a difficult process, the rebuild process? Do you have people who are taking advantage of the ability to put up an ADU?

- A lot of people are exploring ADUs and I'd say about 1/3 of the houses I'm building, there's an ADU and the other trend we're seeing is people are going vertical because of the cost of land, the cost of construction. But on the ADU front, a lot of the, let's go back to the lady I just mentioned. She's staying in Fontana with her daughter now. Her daughter's from Altadena, her daughter probably, I've never asked my friend, but she's a friend of my wife and and myself. She probably would've bought here in town had she been able to afford it. So you look at a lot of the offspring and the children and the grandchildren of the people that I'm building for, they're not living in the area. And the idea is this is a, hopefully a once in a lifetime event that happened, albeit a tragic event that happened. But we're gonna rebuild and why not do an ADU to where we can get some of the kids and the family back and bring people together. A lot of people are talking like a compound almost, where they're gonna, and some of the lots are really big where they're able to keep the kids.

- Is anyone talking about using SB9 to build two duplexes on a lot that used to be a single family house?

- Is your question, am I?

- No, not are you, but are you aware of anybody?

- Yes.

- Or has anyone come to you and asked you to do something like that?

- No one's come to me. I'm not doing any SB9 or SB10 projects, but property has sold in town. And I understand that there are investors who are looking at doing that in some of the areas that tend to be larger lots, a little higher density. So I suspect we're gonna see that. I'm not involved in any specifically.

- So you know what you're up to and you see what's going on around you. Are you optimistic about Altadena's ability to rebuild, pessimistic, neutral? How are you feeling right now? That's a really unfair question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. How are you feeling right now?

- No, I like the question and I embrace it. It's a tough question. Altadena, growing up in Altadena and in West Altadena, Altadena was, you had the kind of the hippies, you had the Black Panthers, it was a diverse community of Black, of white, of Asian Japanese in particular, of Latino, Mexican in particular, and others. We have an Armenian community here. And Altadena was always kind of this special place. And I remember a guy that went to my high school, John Muir High School, did a documentary and he graduated in 1982 from high school. I graduated in 1985. It was entitled, we were lucky. And it is true that if you went to school in Pasadena Public Schools, you were exposed to a lot of different people, unlike most other cities in the San Gabriel Valley. And Monrovia had a pretty diverse community and so did Pomona, so does Pomona, but Pasadena and Altadena and in Pasadena and Altadena, we consider one, Altadenans are part of the Pasadena Unified school district. Altadena was always a place where, you know, in the 80s growing up in the west part of Altadena, we had urban problems, we had gangs and we had drug problems and mixed into all that where all of people just going to work and working at JPL, at Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech, it was a really unique mix of things. And here's this beautiful town nestled at the top of the foothills before you get, you can't really go any further.

- We a lot of streets there. And Eaton County, and the Eaton Canyon. Eaton Canyon is the end of, is it Lake? No. Yeah.

- Well, Eaton Canyon would be Altadena Drive where it turns from going east and west to north and south. The top of Lake is, you know, you can go up to the old hotel that was up there and yeah, Mount Lowe and going up to Altadena on a cool crisp night after it rained. And you know, you and your friends in high school would drive up and, you know, do what high schoolers do. And you'd see this twinkling lights all the way in Palos Verdes. It was amazing. And then in the day you can see the ocean glimmering at about this time, two, three o'clock on certain days. You could just see the glow out there. And Altadena will never look the same though, the natural environment will, but the built environment is going to be different. And people make up a community, not the building. So I'm gonna, you know, I do worry about the community I grew up in and I am very sensitive and advocating of the Black community that grew up here. By way of background, my father is Black, my mother was white. They're both from Chicago. They come, that's why I called my company Bronzeville, by the way 'cause it's a neighborhood that my father grew up in in Chicago.

- So where in Chicago is it?

- Bronzeville would be the south side of Chicago from about 35th down to the 60s.

- Okay.

- Would be from aState Street over to King Drive, Stony Island.

- Okay, all right. So not far from University of Chicago, not far from Hyde Park.

- Hyde Park, Bronzeville, it encompasses some of that Hyde Park and University of Chicago, but it would just be west of that.

- Okay.

- And it was, you know, you talk about Harlem, you talk about Bronzeville, you talk about Greenwood and Tulsa. These were these historic areas where the economy was self-sufficient, self-sustaining. So Bronzeville the company, I kind of got it just, it was just a cool name and I purposely didn't want to put construction or development. I just said, let's name it that. So here come mom and dad to the West Coast. They settled in LA and then moved to Altadena. It was that place where they could fit in, live their best life. A lot of people around them looked like them. A lot of people around them thought like them.

- And I just, I have to, the Black home ownership rate in Altadena was in the neighborhood of 70%.

- Yeah, it's on a level, on a national level, one of the highest.

- Yep.

- So this community is special in so many ways. And here we go today and we're rebuilding this place and rebuilding for who, you know, I believe in the marketplace and everyone's right to buy property wherever they want. I don't wanna see Altadena become a place of a bunch of people that just moved here. Now that I think for the most part, people, most people are rebuilding, but some are gonna sell and it's their right to sell. I get that. But to answer your question, I'm always optimistic, it's gonna be, but I try to be realistic, you know, besides the houses that were destroyed, there's three main commercial corridors in Altadena. There's Lincoln on the west, Fair Oaks in the middle and Lake Avenue on the east. Fair Oaks and Lake were decimated by the fire. So besides the housing stock that we need to rebuild, we have to build back the commercial corridors. And I just hope that, that the vision and that the people who rebuild back, like there's a really cool building on Lake and Mariposa where the Altadena Hardware was. And it's owned by a very respected, longtime Pasadena family, the Galloways. And they're maintaining ownership of that. And I'm really happy about that. And that's a Black family that has owned real estate in that area for a long time. They're gonna build back I understand that block to make it look like it did before, sort of like a Norman Rockwell painting, you know, just these brick one story. You might know where that area is. I hope that developers who purchase across the street, which was leveled by the fire going down Lake, I would love to see more development of that scale, but I'm also understanding of the value of land and zoning. And I'm afraid that the density is gonna be higher. And I'm okay with higher density as I tell people in Pasadena, density's not bad, bad design is what's bad. But I hope that when the commercial corridors are built back, that they're built back with the real emphasis in the design and the walkability. Because I think our community is gonna be defined by how these commercial corridors look.

- So along those lines, so one of the things about walkability is in order for walkable retail to work, you have to have a lot of people who can walk to it. So without a decent amount of residential density, walkable retail just doesn't work. And the places where walkable retail works in the United States are places that are pretty residentially dense nearby. And so do you see the possibility of greater residential density in Altadena as a result of this? Sorry. No, no, no.

- Yeah, I do see the possibility of greater residential density in those same areas. And I think we can go up higher on the density to create that livability that built in. You know, I still think lots of people are gonna frequent businesses by driving there, as long as the parking is easy to get to, or as long as the parking is accessible. And there are transit lines that go up both of those corridors. So that helps as well. I think with the right three story design, for example, of a building with the rooftop deck that looks out to the mountains and to the city lights, could really be something that would be phenomenal. But the retail, it may not be such where it could support a super dense retail area. Because when you looked at that part of Lake Avenue and Mariposa, it had coffee shops, but not a Starbucks, but it had coffee shops that survived and thrived. There was a bar that had been there forever called Rancho that was a really cool place you can go to. They give you a generous pour of whatever you order. And it was just a really comfortable place. I hope comfortable places come back. And when I say comfortable, it's just comfortable.

- I hear you. It's sort of like I talk about, there is, I'll say what it is. There's a restaurant in Pasadena called Celestino, which is one of my favorite restaurants. And I'm sorry that it is not the greatest Italian food you will ever have, although it's really, really good. But it is so comfortable. It is so joyful. It's just so pleasant to sit there and eat there, I mean, their food is really good, but it's not gonna ever win a Michelin star. I'll put it that way. Right? It's just great, well executed Sicilian cooking. But it also is very neighborly and it's very, I know people from Pasadena who've been going there for 20 years. And so you see the same people there over and over again. So I think I know what you mean by comfortable. It's part of your home almost.

- Yes.

- These venues and there aren't that many places like that.

- There aren't. And that, you know, good designers, good visionaries, good real estate people, good civic people can rebuild that commercial corridor back better. I hope that we do a really, really amazing civic space that, you know, there's really nothing to celebrate, obviously for the fire. I remember a year after the fire on that January 7th, a few weeks ago, they had a event up on Lake Avenue and I had a few people say, I'm not going to that. There's nothing to celebrate. And I said, I don't think it's--

- It's memorializing it, not celebrating it.

- It's saying we're still here. And I would like to see a really amazing civic public space that memorializes the fact that people are resilient and still here. I don't know where that will be, but I think we should take a piece of real estate and someone's gotta lead that. But a place where folks can gather 'cause this is unlike anything we've seen. And it happens so rapidly, you know, at 24 hours, the whole community is gone. And I'm certain out in the Palisades, they're having the same type of--

- Conversations.

- Conversations. And I'm not out there. So I don't know. But, you know, my heart aches for those folks too, you know, I mean, Altadena, several of the people that died were friends, sisters of people that I know in two particular instances, I knew these people and it's, you know, I just look at how I can bottom up quilt together my piece of this fabric, one by one by one.

- So I wanna end with a final question is if you could whisper advice into the ear of county officials, one piece of advice, and have them actually follow it, what would that advice be?

- You caught me on my feet. I think Barger's done a really good job listening. Not everybody does. The advice would be to clear the path for people to rebuild and then get out of the way.

- Pithy. And yet yes, that's exactly, great advice. So Joel Bryant--

- There's many times Richard they wanna help and then stand in front of it and say, hey.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I agree with you. Supervisor Barger is, and she's a rare entity as a politician who listens as well as she listens.

- Yep.

- With that, thank you for taking an hour out of your day, Joel, to be with us. That was really great, I learned a lot. I think our audience will have a much better flavor of the issues people are trying to come to grips with as they rebuild in the aftermath of a really cataclysmic event. I should mention that Joel not only teaches for us in our MRED program, but also in our Ross program, which is a program that seeks to give people who typically have not been represented in the real estate industry, the opportunity to dip their toe in the water of that industry. It's a program we're very proud of. We have a great group in the program even as we speak at the moment. And just thanks for all you do for us.

- Thank you. This was really good for me too.

- Good. Well, I'm glad to hear it. And this has been Lusk Perspectives.