Council to Charge Fee for Fire-Prone Property

Property owners in fire-prone areas will be charged an annual fee of $13 for brush clearance inspections, the Los Angeles City Council decided Tuesday.

The fee will apply to all 180,000 parcels in the mountain fire district, which includes much of the San Fernando Valley’s periphery, regardless of whether the owners ignore their hazardous brush or dutifully pick up every last dead twig.

“The fee protects all residents who live in the fire district,” Councilman Mike Feuer, who represents part of the Santa Monica Mountains, said after the council unanimously approved the charge without discussion. “It provides the resources to the city to assure that every resident clears their brush properly.”

An additional charge awaits the laggards who disregard warnings from the city Fire Department. The council raised the fee to $314, from $250, for the administrative expense of hiring a contractor to do the clearance work. Property owners still will be billed for the actual cleanup costs.

The new charges are expected to generate more than $3 million to cover the costs of the city’s brush clearance program, according to a report from the council’s Budget and Finance Committee.

Deputy Fire Chief Jimmy Hill said the department also intends to start charging a $204 noncompliance fee, already on the books but not previously enforced for lack of staff, for property owners who flout the clearance rules. This fee will be levied each time an inspector is forced to reexamine a property that was not adequately cleared the first time.

Property owners in the fire zone are required to clear dangerous brush and trim trees within 200 feet of any structure and 10 feet of any road. As the fire season dawned last September, about 8,000 parcels remained overgrown despite city citations for uncleared brush, prompting a round of finger-pointing between the council and the Fire Department.

“We were going out there sometimes three, four or five times a year to prod these people along,” said Capt. Paul Quagliata, the commander of the Fire Department’s brush clearance unit. “We don’t have time for that. It was spreading my people too thin.”

Alarmed by the unfinished job, the City Council approved $1.8 million in emergency funds last October to help the Fire Department hire six more inspectors and issue contracts to clear the remaining brush. Even then, Quagliata said, the work was only partially finished.