The post-fire rebuild is showing its early signs of becoming a reality in Pasadena.

Jun Li, a 20-year resident of Riviera Drive, who is also an experienced construction manager, received the city’s first two rebuilding permits to anyone to replace the house she lost and also to construct an attached dwelling unit (ADU) on her property.

“I’m so happy,” said Li, who lost a house that she had only constructed back in 2020.

“I really appreciate that the city could help us,” she said, praising the city for its speed and efficiency in getting the permits processed. “Pasadena’s Building Department, they really helped me along.”

Israel Del Toro, deputy director of planning and community development, is excited to be doing so for Li and others.

“I think it’s inspiring for all parties involved … When the fire hit, much of the community, including the city, was under the impression that it would take a year and maybe two years, to remove the debris, and that the rebuild was many years away,” Del Toro said.

“We’re gonna get to the finish line and we’re gonna rebuild our community sooner than anticipated … I think folks find it inspiring and I think it builds their confidence that their community’s gonna be building back really quickly,” he said.

With 117 single-family homes destroyed in Pasadena, along with 12 multi-family units and two accessory-dwelling units, Del Toro is pleased that his department is overseeing an expedited process.

“We’ve significantly cut down the review time for these new submittals … Our goal is to complete that plan check within two weeks, and that is completed by all the departments involved,” he said, noting that the expedited process had been put in place prior to the Jan. 7 Eaton fire.

“I think this is an important message to take away,” Del Toro said. “The city’s going to do its part to expedite the review and provide professional guidance.”

“Almost 20% have already submitted applications to rebuild and that itself is well-beyond anyone’s expectations,” he said, with 26 completed applications having been received, the first having arrived on April 22.

Del Toro said that during the review process, there are invariably corrections that will be required, but fortunately in Li’s case, her team submitted such a solid application, things went very quickly, with just minor changes required.

Li owns and operates Funky East Design & Construction, an interior design and development business based out of Pasadena, so she was able to bring considerable knowledge to this process.

“My team is so good,” Li said, noting that there were only tiny corrections needed in the architectural design. “In only 23 days, they approved all my plans,” with her permits received on May 26.

To her credit, Li made some key choices that also helped get things started much faster. In February, as the Army Corps of Engineers was just getting started with the cleanup work in Pasadena, she chose to move faster by executing her own remediation work privately.

“If you’re not cleaned, you can’t get a soil report,” she said. “You don’t get a soil report, you can’t build a house. You must have a soil report.” This is also something that she has emphasized to friends and neighbors, who have drawn up design plans but failed to take care of this important step in the process.

“I’m lucky,” she said. “I’m in the business so I know how to rebuild. A lot of people don’t know.”

With things moving quickly along, Li said the hope is to have the foundation completed in the next few weeks, and to be able to move back into the new house before Christmas.

Sadly and ironically, the house Li lost was a new construction that was done in 2020. Even though she had taken steps to make most of it fireproof, including aluminum siding, the tiles on the roof caught fire and saw it destroyed.

Li had not even expected there to be problems with the Eaton fire, for while she was out of town, she was in touch with neighbors on the block whose homes were spared.

But when Li turned on a live news broadcast on television, she was shocked to literally see the newscaster standing right in front of her Riviera Drive home while it burned down.

Despite the misfortunes of fate, Li is sanguine about her experiences.

“I really don’t want to talk about the fire because that is history,” she said. “It’s okay. I always tell everyone, my friends, my family, fire can destroy your house but it never can destroy your life, your family, and community.”

“Everything material is all temporary. Your life is permanent … Everything in heaven has a reason. We carry on. We build a new house.”

Jarret Liotta is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and photographer.