5,500+ Fire-Affected Homeowners in LA County Matched to Pre-Approved Plans in 8 Months with Canibuild

In January 2025, several wildfires tore through Pacific Palisades, Eaton, Topanga and Malibu in Los Angeles County within days of each other. Together, the fires burned tens of thousands of acres, destroyed thousands of homes, and claimed lives.

When the disaster subsided, folks living in LA County were determined to rebuild, but didn’t necessarily know where to start.

The Challenge

What can legally be built on a piece of land depends on zoning, setbacks, lot coverage, and rules that can vary parcel by parcel. In ordinary circumstances, working through that with an architect or planning consultant takes weeks of back-and-forth with the permitting office.

After the disaster, the permitting process in LA County was under significant strain. Thankfully, California had passed legislation such as AB 1332, which requires local agencies to have pre-approved Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) plans available within 30 days of a request. In normal circumstances an ADU is a secondary residential unit located on the same lot as an existing single-family or multi-family home. However, following the January 2025 fires, California passed additional legislation, and emergency executive orders to turn ADUs into a critical tool for disaster recovery.

AB 1332 and the emergency orders were aimed specifically at speeding up ADU pre-approvals, but LA County took the approach further by applying it to complete single-family home rebuilds. As a result, the County’s pre-approved plan catalog includes designs for both homes and ADUs. 

Residents did not, therefore, have to start to rebuild from scratch. But a catalog of pre-approved plans only helps if a homeowner can tell which actually fits their lot – that’s where Canibuild stepped in.

How the Partnership Started

Canibuild's CEO and co-founder, Timothy Cocaro, reached out to LA County directly after the fires. Cocaro, who is originally from Australia but now based in New York, has seen the aftermath of natural disasters affect friends and family before, and moved quickly once he saw what LA County was facing.

“When you put your heart first as a business, it proves the value of what you are providing for the community,” said Alicia Chittum, Head of Marketing at Canibuild. “When we say this portal changed outcomes, we mean it literally — hundreds of homeowners who used the portal got matched to a compliant plan with builder details and estimated pricing the same day they searched their address. That's the difference between a family waiting months and a family moving forward.”

The Solution: Front Desk

The result is the LA County Pre-Approved Plan Portal, a public-facing portal using Canibuild’s Front Desk solution, that has been live on LA County's website since December 1, 2025.

The portal lets a homeowner enter their address and – within seconds – see their parcel boundary, applicable zoning rules, setbacks, hazard designations, and site constraints matched against the county's catalog of pre-approved plans. 

"It is very much one of our success stories,” said Ciara Barnett, Assistant Deputy Director, LA County Public Works. “You pull it up, you show them the Canibuild tool, and it just blows people's minds all the time. It really helps."

Rather than a static list a homeowner has to interpret alone, the portal filters that catalog down to only show the plans that are compliant with their specific lot, by build type (single-family home or ADU), size, and bedroom count. Homeowners can download a documented zoning pre-check report at no cost, and the portal surfaces multiple builders with direct contact information, so no one is steered toward a single option.

For the county, the benefit isn't just for homeowners. When homeowners arrive at the submission stage already knowing their plan fits their lot, that frees staff to focus on reviewing complete applications rather than repeatedly fielding similar questions or sending back applications that have been completed incorrectly.

The Portal’s Impact

In less than a year, the LA County portal has reached more than 5,500 homeowners across the fire-impacted area, covering 98% of fire-affected parcels. Those homeowners have run 5,700+ property searches and been matched with builders more than 330 times.

The catalog is free to access and has grown to 150+ pre-approved home and ADU designs, contributed by 20 participating design & builder companies with transparent pricing. 

Because plans are pre-approved, once a submission reaches the county, reviewers don’t need to deal with the small, repetitive errors that typically send an application back for resubmission. This has significantly accelerated the permitting timelines LA County was accustomed to before the portal.

On average, applications now clear County review in 30 business days — meeting California's statutory review ceiling (AB 2234) even amid a historic surge in fire-rebuild applications, down from the eight-to-twelve-month timelines homeowners faced before the portal launched.

From Emergency Order to Cooperative Access

The same Front Desk solution, along with Canibuild's broader permitting and compliance suite, is now available to public agencies through the Alliance for Innovation’s AI Data Innovation Solutions for Smarter Communities cooperative contract on Civic Marketplace, with pricing already competitively awarded and no separate solicitation required.

What's Next: Bringing Clarity to Staff, Not Just Residents

Front Desk solved the problem for homeowners. The next conversation with LA County is about giving staff that same instant clarity: using PlanCheck (ReadyCheck, ZoneCheck, BuildCheck) to pre-validate zoning and code compliance before an application ever reaches a reviewer's desk, so the acceleration residents feel on the front end carries through the entire review process.

• ReadyCheck | Submission Completeness
• ZoneCheck | Planning & Zoning Review
• BuildCheck | Building Code Review