This story originally appeared on Vox and is part of the Climate office Collaboration.

In the wake of record forest fires in Los Angeles in Janogy – Asome of the most Costly and destructive blazes In history – one of the first things that California Governor Gavin Newsom did was to sign Executive decree Suspected environmental rules for order.

The idea was that by renouncing Pemeting regulations and examining the law on the Calforeia coast and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the owners and the buds could start cleaning, installing walls and bringing people back into homes faster.

But that raised a key question for the defenders of the accommodation: could California does something similar for the whole state?

Earlier this month, Newsom took a step in this direction, Two bills signing This would exempt most urban dwellings from environmental examinations and facilitate the task of inconsistent housing by modifying zoning laws. Newsom also signed another decree that Suspends certain local pecit laws And the building codes for the communities accentuated by fire in order to make a new reconstruction.

Housing reforms cannot come early enough for the city of Angels. Blown by the blowing of hurricanes Santa Ana Winds On an unusually dry and grassy landscape, the fires that torn the Burned nearly 48,000 acres and damaged or rights of more than 16,000 structures, Including more than 9,500 unified houses1,200 duplex and 600 apartments in one of the most Housed accommodation regions of the country.

Los Angeles is a critical case study for housing for the whole State, at the test of the place where the government controlled by Democrat can coordinate its contradictory political bases – unit, environmental groups, housing defenders – with a desperate need of more houses. State environmental laws were considered by certain observers as a sign that the Golden State finally saw light.

But despite the relaxed rules, progress has been slow. Over 800 owners In the areas affected by forest fires, asked for the reconstruction of PEMI on July 7, according to the Los Angeles Times. However, less than 200 received the green light. The city of Los Angeles takes approximately 55 days on Averal to approve the reconstruction of forest fires, and the widening of the County of Los Angeles takes more time. (The County of Los Angeles has a Dashboard to follow the pemitting approvals in areas not constituted in society.)

“The process of the East East super slow, so it is not surprising,” said Elisa Paster, general associate at Rand Paster Nelson, a FIR based in Los Angeles specializing in land use law. “Year, we have heard that many people have decided not to want to go through the reconstruction process in Los Angeles because it is quite expensive.”

Now half year after the embers, it is clear that the change in rules is not learned. The CEQA defenders say that the 55 -year -old law is really a scapegoat for a larger and more intactable housing problem. Other factors, such as more expensive building materials and labor shortages, always increase the construction costs of the accommodation, regardless of the bite speeds. And certain environmental groups have the world that the precipitation of reconstructing everything because it was a question of recreating the conditions which led to the flames in the first place, a dangerous percherus persistent in an area where the risks of forest only grow.

How CEQA reforms can and cannot help the Hamed community by forest fires

The CEQA is one of the environmental laws in California, signed by Governor Ronald Reagan, in 1970. It requires that the governments of the preliminary states and premises are looking for any potential environmental damage to a construction project, such as water pollution, threats of species in danger, and later, and later, greenhouse gas emissions. Developers must disclose these problems and take measures to avoid them. The law was also going to the public to weigh in new developments.

In the years that followed, the CEQA has been blamed as an obstacle to new construction. Many criticisms see this as a cynical tool exercised to prevent a new construction of housing in rich communities, even invoked Challenge road closures and new parks On environmental land. He is one of the bad guys of “Abundance” movement This recommends cutting administrative formalities to build more houses and clean energy.