Trump says Pacific Palisades is allowing affordable housing. Is that true?
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- California Gov. Gavin Newsom says President Trump is lying about approving low-income housing developments in the burned Pacific Palisades area.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has responded to a social media post from President Trump saying the state was nearing approval of low-income housing in Pacific Palisades following January’s firestorm, writing the claim is a “lie.”
On Tuesday, Trump took to Truth Social to say Newsom was “in the final stages of approval to build low income housing in Pacific Palisades. How unfair is that to the people that have suffered so much.”
The claim sparked a quick response from Newsom’s social media team, who posted on X less than an hour later that Trump’s claim was “a straight up lie.”
It is unclear what specific housing effort Trump was referring to, and the Trump administration has not responded to a Times request for clarification, but here’s what we know.
Facts: There have been several efforts toward wildfire recovery and rebuilding but none are replacing or taking away from the historically single-family home community.
An effort toward wildfire recovery did involve funding for low-income housing. In July, the governor’s office and the California Department of Housing and Community Development announced the state was providing $101 million to fund subsidized affordable multifamily rental housing projects with priority given to projects proposed in and around burn zones. The projects would be located near L.A. County burn scars and include a preference for residents displaced by the January firestorm.
Developments that are close to breaking ground would be given priority. However, officials have also not made any awards for proposals in the Palisades.
In a separate effort in July, Newsom issued an executive order to give local governments permission to suspend Senate Bill 9, which allows property owners to divide single-family home lots and build up to four units, in the Palisades and parts of Malibu and Altadena so that the city and county of Los Angeles and Malibu could develop their own restrictions. Following his order, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass banned duplex project applications within the Palisades burn zones.
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Beyond claiming new affordable housing in Pacific Palisades was imminent, Trump’s Truth Social post also claimed the governor and Bass were prioritizing new low-income housing projects over Californians rebuilding “long after the federal permits were issued.”
Facts: The state does not issue housing permits, local cities and counties do.
Six months after the fires, more than 800 homeowners in the Pacific Palisades, Altadena, Malibu and Pasadena areas affected by the fires had applied for rebuilding permits, according to a Times analysis. At the time, at least 145 had received approval to start construction on major repairs or replacement of their homes.
Times staff writer Liam Dillon contributed to this report.
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