Christopher Russell (Strategic Communications, Yimby LA)
The California Assembly is one floor vote from suspending the right to split a lot in the two ZIP codes that burned in the Eaton Fire. The suspension starts January 1, which gives Altadena homeowners under five months to finish a process that takes twelve to eighteen. SB 1090 was ordered to a third reading on August 3, and it can be voted on any session day before the Legislature adjourns on August 31.
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Two laws are keeping Altadena's rebuild affordable
Two laws currently give Altadena homeowners options that other homeowners across California have. SB 9 lets an owner split a single family lot or add a second home to it. SB 1123 makes small for-sale infill ministerial, meaning up to ten townhomes, condos, or small-lot homes can move through approval without discretionary review.
Between them, these laws produce duplexes, cottage courts, and townhomes. They do not produce apartment buildings or high rises. Much of the energy behind SB 1090 comes from residents picturing a building the law does not permit anyone to construct.
For a family rebuilding, a lot split is a financing instrument. Insurance settlements routinely fall short of replacement cost, federal and state assistance is limited, and construction costs have climbed every year since the fire and especially since these homes were built. Selling half the parcel and rebuilding on the other half is how that math resolves, and for an owner who cannot manage a construction project at all, selling to a builder who will return housing to the lot is the difference between a sale and a parcel that sits empty for a decade.
The state tried this once and lost
SB 1090 is not the first attempt to take these tools away from fire survivors. In July 2025, Governor Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass signed executive orders letting local governments nullify SB 9 in areas of the burn scars designated very high fire severity zones. YIMBY Law challenged that order in court, arguing that emergency powers exist for debris removal, temporary housing, and infrastructure repair rather than for prospective zoning policy in neighborhoods that have not been rebuilt yet.
The YIMBY argument is a winning one. In July, Malibu and Pasadena both settled. Each agreed to repeal its local anti-duplex ordinance and to accept all pending and future applications filed under the law, and Pasadena’s city council voted unanimously to do so on July 20. Malibu has until September 29. “For people who are living, or hoping to live, or hoping to move back to Malibu and Pasadena, SB 9 is back,” YIMBY Law executive director Sonja Trauss told CalMatters.
That is the context SB 1090 arrives in. Pasadena, which borders Altadena, restored SB 9 by unanimous vote two weeks before this bill was sent to the Assembly floor. Because Altadena is unincorporated, the government that would administer the suspension is Los Angeles County, which is still in court defending the approach two of its neighbors just abandoned.
Five months for a twelve-month process
SB 1090, authored by Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, suspends ministerial approval under SB 9 and SB 1123 in ZIP codes 91001 and 91003 for applications submitted on or after January 1, 2027 and before January 7, 2030. The suspension originally reached back to January 7, 2025, and was amended on July 2 to start next year instead.
In unincorporated Altadena, splitting a lot is a process of subdivision rather than simply obtaining a building permit. This means a licensed survey, a tentative parcel map, county review, a final map, and recordation with the county before a building permit can be pulled. LA County Public Works estimates put that sequence at twelve to eighteen months. As of August 2026, the Legislature is offering less than five months. If the bill clears the Assembly floor and Senate concurrence in the closing week of the session, it is closer to four. An interior designer remodeling two rooms of an existing house routinely takes longer than that. The window is shorter than the process it was written to accommodate.
The families who can file by December are the ones whose insurance settled early, who had cash on hand for a survey, and who found a surveyor willing to take the job. The families who cannot are still in arbitration with a carrier, still waiting on a soils report, still paying rent in another county while they work out whether coming home is affordable at all. A bill written to protect Altadena from displacement sorts Altadena residents by how quickly their insurer paid, and takes the most useful financial tool in the rebuild away from everyone on the wrong side of that timeline.
SB 1090 relitigates settled law
In February we published the case against suspending SB 9 in fire zones on the story of Andrew Post’s parents, who were trying to work out how to come home to Altadena. That piece argued the executive orders were prospective policymaking dressed as emergency response, and that the safety rationale would not survive scrutiny. Five months later, Malibu and Pasadena settled rather than defend them. The Post family’s math has not changed and Andrew made the case again in the Pasadena Star-News in July.
SB 1090 itself is new. The bill only took on its current language, restricting SB 9 and SB 1123 in Altadena, through a ‘gut-and-amend’ process in the beginning of July. There was no signal in February that this was coming, which is why the response has had to be fast.
In July, 15 fire survivors, residents of Altadena, and small scale developers called into Sen. Perez’s office to raise these concerns directly, and over 500 letters went to legislators over the course of that campaign.
If you have written to a legislator, or spoken up about the rebuild this year, we are making progress in getting the CA Senate and Assembly to amend the bill and remove SB 9 limitations and narrow the limitations on 1123. No amendments have been made yet, but–as evidenced by Malibu and Pasadena–we could be within reach if we keep the pressure on.
The case for SB 1090, and the better tools available
Sen. Pérez has described SB 1090 as protecting Altadena from “predatory developers looking to take advantage of the devastation and suffering.” That concern is legitimate, and it deserves a remedy aimed at the problem, but we shouldn’t answer it with a law that also hurts the homeowners and builders trying to bring this community back. Developers, in Altadena, means local contractors and small homebuilders, and Altadena cannot replace thousands of structures without them. Concentration and deception have targeted tools available: cap how many burn-area lots any single entity can hold, strengthen protections against unsolicited offers, require disclosure of who is buying. None of those require suspending a financing option for every homeowner in two ZIP codes.
What you can do before August 31
SB 9 is back in Pasadena and Malibu (good) and SB 1090 would make Altadena the exception (not good). Amendments are being negotiated in the Senate right now. Ask your senator to take SB 9 and SB 1123 out of SB 1090. Send the letter