To Bind Wounds, City Cuts Red Tape : Fire: Emergency permits are being issued to homeowners who want to rebuild on their charred property.

Malibu turned to the task of rebuilding this week.

“We’ve been through what we’d all categorize as a war,” City Manager David Carmany said. “The city’s war starts now.”

As water-dropping helicopters continued to douse stubborn hot spots and residents sifted through the remains of their burned-out homes, the City Council approved an emergency measure giving the city manager authority to suspend or modify city ordinances to respond quickly to fire hazards, and authorized the planning director to propose amendments to building regulations to make it easier for fire victims to rebuild.

The California Coastal Commission, meanwhile, also announced it was suspending its normal permit process to help anxious fire victims in Malibu and elsewhere along the five-mile-wide coastal zone rebuild as quickly as possible.

The commission set up a field office in Malibu late last week and immediately began issuing emergency permits--in some cases over the phone--for grading, erosion control and the placement of temporary structures needed to aid in the recovery, spokesman Jack Liebster said.

“Our big concern at this point is helping people put their lives back together, and doing what we can to get conditions on the ground back in order before the rains come, and we have to deal with mudslides,” Mayor Carolyn Van Horn said.

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Fire officials said the final toll from last week’s destructive blaze may not be available for several weeks, but that so far at least 390 homes and other structures are known to have been destroyed and more than 19,000 acres blackened by the blaze, which began in Calabasas and raced across the Santa Monica Mountains to the Pacific Ocean at Malibu.

Tuesday, about 200 residents gathered at the Hughes Research Laboratory--which narrowly escaped being engulfed by the blaze--to hear city officials and others describe what steps will be needed to help the community return to normal.

City officials, meanwhile, praised firefighters for what they described as a heroic effort to prevent Malibu from suffering even greater damage.

“They were outstanding,” said Van Horn, as she toured a relief center set up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Malibu’s civic center.

The firefighting effort, however, was not without its glitches.

At Pepperdine University, for example, police using a helicopter loudspeaker mistakenly urged students to abandon the campus for a brief time last Tuesday afternoon even as university officials were encouraging them to remain inside Firestone Fieldhouse for their own safety.

“It was just a breakdown of communication, I guess,” Pepperdine spokesman Jeff Bliss said this week.

Among officials and fire victims, however, the focus this week was clearly on the future.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the council approved an emergency measure authorizing City Manager Carmany, as the director of emergency services, to respond immediately to threats of landslides, falling trees, falling structures, soil erosion, the release of raw sewage, and other hazards in fire-affected areas.

“This is a ‘just do it’ time, and we need to get on with it,” Carmany said.

Among the first steps to be taken under the measure was the opening of a one-lane temporary bridge over a creek in Las Flores Canyon. Fire crews were unable to save several homes there after a wooden bridge that spanned the creek collapsed in flames.

Carmany cited the bridge replacement as an example of how the city will move swiftly to eliminate red tape, adding that ordinarily it could take weeks or even months to design and take bids for a bridge.

City officials said they are also working to streamline the review process normally needed to build homes.

Among other things, officials said, they may waive some planning and building fees and will use federal disaster relief funds to hire two new planners to help meet the increased workload.

On Friday, the city had initially issued an advisory saying that under city law, homeowners could rebuild their homes without complying with current zoning requirements as long as they rebuild their homes exactly as they had been.

However, after talking to more than 100 residents since the fire, city Planning Director Bob Benard said he will probably recommend that the council amend ordinances to allow homeowners to modify their building plans without having to meet current design and development standards.

For example, he said, residents who did not have a garage before the fire should not be penalized and forced to deduct the square footage of a garage from the size allowed in their new homes.

Several homeowners who attended Tuesday’s session urged city officials to be flexible in what they allow to be rebuilt.

“The staff needs to expedite the process for people burned out,” said resident Skylar Brown, an architect.

Others, while citing the need for flexibility, warned city officials to be cautious in what they allow to be rebuilt, especially in disaster-prone areas.

“The bottom line is, you can’t (allow residents to) just rebuild the way it was,” said Las Flores Mesa resident Joan Knapp, whose home was one of the few in that area to survive the fire. “You’re committing them to suicide.”

Knapp said it wasn’t luck, but brick construction and fire-resistant landscaping that helped save her home.

“It’s a moonscape up there,” Knapp said of her neighborhood.

Other Las Flores residents were angry that homes were lost because there is no backup system for electric pumps that pump water to storage tanks in the canyons.

“It’s incomprehensible to be in 1993 and have this occur,” Councilwoman Joan House said.

Councilman John Harlow said he and the mayor plan to discuss ways to improve the city’s antiquated water-delivery system with officials of the county assessment district responsible for providing Malibu’s water.

Responding to complaints from firefighters, several council members said the city should consider setting residential landscaping standards for safety.

Don Wallace, a former firefighter and now spokesman for Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman, said the city and county should redouble their efforts to encourage brush clearance and fire-resistant landscaping.

“Perhaps it’s time for government to regulate what you can and cannot plant,” he said.