On September 10, Ellia Thompson was featured in Law360 Real Estate Authority, discussing how California’s recent devastating wildfires are reshaping community planning, development, and infrastructure. In the interview, Ellia highlights the growing role of insurance requirements, the important of resilient design, and the need for stronger infrastructure to better protect communities. The following is an excerpt:
Law360 Real Estate Authority spoke recently with Ellia Thompson, an L.A.-based land use and zoning partner at Venable LLP, about how these disasters are influencing development and what steps lawyers, government and developers may want to consider.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How have recent extreme wildfires in California shaped approaches to development and community planning, and what have been driving forces? Obviously, government can pursue policy reforms, but what else is influencing change?
Unfortunately, I don't know how much government really is changing things just yet, because government just doesn't work that fast. It's a slow-moving barge. They're necessary, they're functional, but they're slow as they go through and figure out what's the best path forward. And I think sometimes people forget or just aren't conscious of the fact that these fires [in Los Angeles] were only eight months ago.
Certainly, insurance is driving it. There have been a lot of communications, conferences, discussions where a lot of architects and designers and engineers are attempting to design with the idea of "How do we insure what we're building?"
I don't know that that was really a thought before. Certainly it's a thought when it comes to earthquakes, because earthquake insurance is so incredibly expensive, but we haven't really been thinking about, "Well, how do I build for fire?"
There have been other fires, but they haven't really hit major urban areas the way the Palisades and the Altadena [Eaton] fires did. But now people are thinking, let's go with metal roofs, let's have more concrete pour in terms of not just the foundation but even for walls and key elements. Previously people thought of double- and triple-paned glass for sound or even for pollution, but now there's more of a thought of "Can we design glass that can withstand a higher level of heat and fire?"
For the full article, click here.