As Breitbart News has reported, Caruso’s mall, the Palisades Village, was one of the only commercial structures to survive the Palisades Fire, thanks to fire-resistant building materials, private firefighters, and mobile water tankers.
Many residents have pointed to his efforts as an example of what could have been done to save the other structures in the city, if the state and local governments had made more water, and more firefighters, available for the effort.
Caruso is expected to clash with Steve Soboroff, another developer who has been named “Chief Recovery Officer” by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, whom Soboroff supported in the 2022 election over Caruso, a Republican-turned-Democrat.
Soboroff has indicated that he is at least open to including “affordable” housing in the Palisades.
It is not clear what that would mean: the area already included a trailer park near the ocean that was destroyed by the fire, and some homes had been cheaper, on a per-square-foot-basis, than homes in denser areas nearby, such as Santa Monica.
The Wall Street Journal has reported:
In an interview, Caruso said he is forming a nonprofit to help speed and smooth rebuilding. That entity would give him input over many of the most crucial aspects of rebuilding the Palisades. He and a small team would push for how the community’s infrastructure gets rebuilt and would advocate for maintaining its current residential zoning, he said.
…
In many ways, Caruso’s vision for the neighborhood closely mirrors Soboroff’s. Both want to improve fire safety and retain the neighborhood’s quintessential Californian charm, all while accelerating clean-up and construction.
But Caruso’s battle plan could differ in one crucial way. He wants to curb additional affordable housing to the Palisades if that creates more density, he said. Soboroff hasn’t ruled out adding more affordable housing to the area, and state law has mandated that cities build more of it.
Soboroff told Breitbart News on Tuesday that he had spoken with Caruso twice by email since the fire.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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