High Cost of Stilts : Quake Victims Seek Waiver of FEMA Rule on Extra Height for Houses

In the anguish-filled days following the Jan. 17 earthquake, when many victims were fretting over damage and mourning their losses, Simi Valley resident Louise Kisting whirled into action.

Less than a week after the tragedy, the recently widowed grandmother beat a path to the city’s Building and Safety Department, the first homeowner to secure permission to rebuild.

“The neighbors said, ‘Your house is going to be the first one restored, so when all our houses are back together, we’ll have the party at your place,’ ” Kisting, 59, recalled. “I thought, ‘Yes, it will be done by the summer and we can have a party by the pool.’ ”

Nearly a year and $90,000 in contractor’s fees later, there has been no party and a puddle of slime festers at the bottom of the pool.

Kisting’s wood-frame, two-story house on the east end of the city is a stripped-down shell she can hardly bear to look at without bursting into tears.

Why the delay?

In April, well after Kisting’s contractor had ripped out carpets, torn down walls and repaired cracked beams, the city learned from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that because Kisting lives in a flood plain, she must rebuild her house on stilts.

Now the city is pressing reluctant FEMA officials to grant exceptions for residents who have spent substantial time and money on repairs.

While the city and FEMA tussle, at least a dozen homeowners, Kisting among them, have been told they must comply.

“I’ve put all this money into my house, and now they’re telling me I have to tear it down and start over,” Kisting said. “How can this happen?”

At issue is a city ordinance enforced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency requiring that damaged homes in a flood zone be built as high as five feet off the ground if repairs will cost at least half the value of the house.

Such platforms, which in many cases are not covered by insurance, cost about $25,000.

The city is planning to conduct an in-depth survey of quake-damaged homes at the east end of town to figure out how many are subject to the requirement, Assistant City Manager Mike Sedell said. So far the city knows of about a dozen cases.

“We don’t expect to find too many more,” Sedell said. “But we want to make sure absolutely sure that we don’t miss anyone.”

At a meeting with FEMA and city officials, residents in the flood zone this week denounced the regulation, arguing that forcing homeowners to rebuild their houses above ground is an undue financial burden on quake victims.

They also voiced concerns that houses built on stilts rather than solid ground will be more prone to damage in future quakes and that the looming homes will mar neighborhood aesthetics and lower property values.

During the nearly six-hour meeting at City Hall, the angry homeowners also berated the city for not telling them about the elevation requirement immediately after the quake.

Seventy-two homeowners signed a petition asking for an exemption from the regulations.

“This is a perfect example of the government coming in and really messing things up for people,” said Lorrell Cooper, who lives near Kisting. “People are out here trying to get their lives back together, and what do they get? Just a bunch of messed-up information from the city and from FEMA.”

Mayor Greg Stratton defended the city, saying workers were eager to help residents any way they could.

“I’m not going to fault my staff for trying to help people rebuild their houses,” Stratton said. “The real frustration is trying to find a way to understand and work through FEMA’s rules.”

Until June, city workers were including only structural repairs such as foundations, walls and fireplaces when assessing whether the total cost of repairs equaled at least half the value of the house, in which case the house would have to be elevated.

Then FEMA stepped in and said all improvements, even cosmetic work like drapes, carpeting, light fixtures and paint, must be included in the cost of repairs.

FEMA keeps “moving the target, so we don’t look like we have a solid system,” Sedell said. “We’re continuing to be whipsawed back and forth.”

If the city allows homeowners to rebuild in defiance of the elevation requirement without FEMA approval, the agency could suspend Simi Valley from the flood insurance program. Residents would then be unable to get federally backed loans for mortgages.

The homes are included in a flood zone in large part because of their proximity to the Arroyo Simi, a flood control channel that runs the length of the city.

When the city joined the flood control district in 1991, most homes along the arroyo were considered at risk in a catastrophic flood. According to FEMA engineers there is a 1% or greater chance that these homes will flood in any given year.

City historian Patricia Havens said she is unaware of any flood of that magnitude in Simi Valley’s past.

“Records show that we’ve had six or seven very bad floods over the years, as far back as 1914,” Havens said. “There isn’t a record of any major flooding before that, and none of these floods has caused what you would call major or catastrophic damage.”

The arroyo suffered severe damage in the Jan. 17 earthquake, and the county Public Works Agency has applied for a $2.9-million FEMA grant to completely overhaul the channel. It would cost an additional $800,000 to replace a railroad crossing over the channel, a critical part of the project, said Dolores B. Taylor, county flood control engineer.

If the funding is approved, the project could be completed by next fall, Taylor said, dramatically decreasing the flood risk to nearby homes.

But Jack Eldridge, chief of FEMA’s community mitigation program for California, is less optimistic.

“The problem with this is that flood control projects historically take longer than anybody would have guessed,” Eldridge said. “Often when you have multiple parties, they get into a headlock and nothing gets done.”

Nonetheless, the city has commissioned a study to show which homes would be removed from the flood zone if the Arroyo Simi is rebuilt.

Homeowners argue that they should not be forced to rebuild their homes on stilts if they will no longer be in the flood zone in less than a year.

But Eldridge said FEMA is extremely reluctant to grant exemptions, known as variances, to the rule.

“The thing you want to avoid is that occasionally cities have given variances that were inappropriate,” he said. “The residents get bills for flood insurance that was $5,000 or $6,000 a year, and they gag. With no project in sight, those buildings become a white elephant for the owners and the community.”

Now, while the city and FEMA slug it out over what to include in the cost analysis for repairs and whether exemptions to the elevation rule will be granted, the homeowners wait.

For many, the flood zone building requirements are the most recent in a string of setbacks and government rigmarole that has kept them from rebuilding their homes and getting on with their lives.

In Kisting’s neighborhood, empty houses, cracked and boarded up, are common. Dumpsters seem permanently rooted in front of many homes, and piles of bricks and debris litter the streets.

On Aurelia Street, Mike Riley’s three-bedroom bungalow is stripped to the crack-infested concrete floor. He and his wife live in a rented apartment in Newbury Park.

A chain link fence separates Riley’s property from the arroyo, just a few feet from his rubble-strewn back yard.

For several months after the quake, Riley, 46, proceeded with plans to rebuild his home. In June he discovered that his house must be elevated.

“I was just going along, minding my own business and then they tell me, ‘You gotta raise your house five feet,’ ” Riley said. “I said, ‘You’re crazy. You’re on drugs.’ ”

After giving the matter more consideration, Riley, a deputy sheriff for Los Angeles County, decided to comply. Fed up with waiting for a decision on whether he may be exempt, Riley plans to tear down his home and reconstruct it five feet in the air.

His insurance company, he said, will not cover the cost of the platform.

“I know one thing,” he said. “When this house is rebuilt five feet off the ground it will meet every stinkin’ requirement in the book.”

Around the corner on a cul de sac on Dulcie Street sits yet another vacant, stripped-own house.

This one belongs to Patricia Storey, 54, who bought the cozy four-bedroom home with her daughter and son-in-law in 1988 and spent $20,000 remodeling it before the quake.

Like Kisting, Storey was issued permits by the city that were later revoked. Now she is waiting to hear whether the $50,000 she has sunk into repairs has been wasted.

“If I have to elevate this house, I’ll have to tear it down,” said Storey, who runs an office supply store in Van Nuys. “What about all the money I’ve already spent? This is just crazy.”

As for Kisting, she said she is just about ready to give up hope that her home will ever be repaired.

On a recent, windy morning, Kisting stood in her empty living room.

As the cold wind gusted mercilessly through the house’s stripped frame, she pulled out a photograph taken there last Christmas.

In it, her grandson is snuggled in an overstuffed chair in front of the fireplace in the glow of an ornament-laden tree, grinning shyly at the camera.

“I’m not doing anything for the holidays this year,” she said, her eyes glistening with tears as she quickly stuffed the photo into her purse. “I don’t have a home. What’s the point?”

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Simi Valley Flood Zone Simi Valley residents whose houses are in the flood zone and were severly damaged in the January quake may be required to elevate their houses as they rebuild.