Construction Companies See Opportunities Amid Rubble

VAN NUYS — In the blackened clouds from this week’s fires, there is a silver lining for people such as Curtis Quillin.

Quillin, 32, is a Van Nuys builder who erects expensive homes in the mountains and near the ocean--those areas most devastated by the fires. As flames danced from Topanga Canyon to Malibu on Tuesday, Quillin listened anxiously to fire reports from his car. But in the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but think about how many fire victims might be rebuilding and what that would mean for his struggling business.

“Twelve months from now it’ll double or triple our business,” said Quillin, who builds five to 10 giant houses a year, each averaging $1.5 million.

“It’s going to revive the business down here,” he said. “Unfortunately, we’re going to benefit from this misery.”

So will many others in the region’s beleaguered construction industry, from cleanup crews and soil engineers to architects and myriad of contractors and subcontractors in the housing industry’s long food chain. However bittersweet, the fires have rekindled hopes for some in Southern California’s battered housing market.

Blazes have destroyed at least 1,000 homes in the Southland, including more than 200 in the most recent Calabasas-Malibu fire. Experts estimate that two-thirds of those homeowners will rebuild on the same land, despite the many new and tougher building codes they will have to meet.

These new home-building projects won’t completely turn around the region’s building industry, said Alfred Gobar, a real estate economist in Placentia. “But it’s going to be a bonanza for some,” he said, citing in particular small developers of custom-built homes and businesses that mop up after disasters.

Already, firms such as Har-Bro Inc. are benefiting.

The Long Beach-based Har-Bro, which has an office in Chatsworth, specializes in assessing damage from fires and cleaning up debris. After last week’s fires, Har-Bro received about 35 calls, mostly from insurance companies.

“The calls are coming in all the time,” said Harold Brown, president of the company.

Like many others, Brown was worried about being viewed as a vulture for capitalizing on people’s misery.

“We don’t push ourselves on the people for work,” he said, adding that he was doing some work for free, but also acknowledging that he is leaving business cards at disaster offices and relief centers.

Many businesses were more willing to concede that they hope to see new business from the fires.

“Once these people decide they’re going to rebuild, there’s going to be a lot of builders out there,” said Mark Anderson, a manager at Terry Lumber Co. in Tarzana. “Hopefully, Terry’s going to be one of their big suppliers.”

Except for cleanup shops and hardware stores--which have had a run on garden hoses, pumps and masks during the last week--new building work resulting from the fires won’t arise for several months at least. It will take at least that long for many people to receive their permits to rebuild.

Many who lost homes to the fires face much more stringent building codes--regulating everything from size of the house to what’s in it and around it--that could add not only time, but tens of thousands of dollars to rebuilding costs. Some may not be able to rebuild at all.

Among the many new building ordinances passed recently is one created by the county for the Mulholland Boulevard corridor. That law prohibits building houses on hillsides if they block the view of houses behind them.

Plus, those who want to build within a few miles of the ocean face Coastal Commission requirements that didn’t exist a decade ago. A Coastal Commission review alone could take several months, said Robert Lamishaw, president of JPL Zoning, a private zoning consultant in Van Nuys. Lamishaw also is expecting an increase in business.

“There are a lot of these laws, that if enforced, could drastically alter what’s permissible,” Lamishaw said.

One of the biggest new costs for those seeking to rebuild in remote areas that are not easily accessible to firefighters may be the requirement to install automatic fire sprinklers in homes, at a cost of up to $10,000. Then there are government requirements for the use of fire-retardant roofing and the many relatively recent ordinances related to the stability of the ground on which the house will be built.

“There are lots of areas in Malibu and Topanga Canyon where there are landslides,” said Scott Moore, an engineer at Kovacs-Byer and Associates, a soil engineering company in Studio City. Moore said his firm already has received calls from insurance firms advising them that there soon will be a boon in soil-engineering work.

“There are going to be lots of issues related to the soil,” Moore said.

And there are possibilities that even more building codes will be added soon to the books. Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman said he will ask the Board of Supervisors to set up an independent panel of experts to decide if there’s a need to rewrite the county’s fire and building codes “to better protect people who live in fire areas.”

David Applebaum, a West Hollywood architect, said it might take two years for a person to rebuild in areas destroyed by the fires. But Applebaum already is planning for such contingencies.

Even as he was watching fires burning Malibu on Tuesday, wondering if some of the houses he designed had gone up in flames, Applebaum was thinking about new projects.

“I was sketching out schemes for making fire-proof homes,” said Applebaum, who specializes in designing coastal residences.

Applebaum said his business last year was “awful,” and it’s only improved slightly this year.