---
title: "Malibu and Pasadena Settle a Lawsuit and Restore SB 9 Rebuilding Rights in Burn Zones"
description: "Both cities had used state and city executive orders to suspend SB 9 lot splits and duplexes in fire zones. Both have now agreed to repeal those ordinances. The case against Newsom, Bass, the city and the county continues."
category: "California"
category_url: https://herald.la/category/california
author: "Brandon Cole"
published: 2026-07-31T13:55:00.000Z
updated: 2026-07-31T13:55:00.000Z
canonical: https://herald.la/article/malibu-and-pasadena-settle-a-lawsuit-and-restore-sb-9-rebuilding-rights-in-burn
tags: ["housing", "sb-9", "wildfire-recovery", "malibu", "pasadena"]
---
# Malibu and Pasadena Settle a Lawsuit and Restore SB 9 Rebuilding Rights in Burn Zones

Both cities had used state and city executive orders to suspend SB 9 lot splits and duplexes in fire zones. Both have now agreed to repeal those ordinances. The case against Newsom, Bass, the city and the county continues.

Two of the cities hit hardest by the January 2025 fires have agreed to stop
blocking a state housing law inside their burn areas.

Pasadena's council voted unanimously on July 20 to repeal its ordinances and
begin accepting applications under SB 9, and Malibu agreed to do the same by
September 29,
[according to CalMatters](https://calmatters.org/housing/2026/07/yimby-sb9-malibu-pasadena/).
Both settlements resolve claims brought by YIMBY Law, a pro-housing nonprofit.

## What SB 9 does

SB 9 took effect in 2022. In single-family zones it requires cities to approve,
ministerially rather than through discretionary hearings, a split of one lot into
two, and duplexes on the resulting parcels. In practice a property that allowed
one home can allow up to four units. Cities may impose objective standards but
cannot use design review or discretionary findings to say no.

The point of the ministerial route is that it removes the stage at which a
project usually dies.

## How the fire zones came to be exempt

After the fires, Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signed
executive orders that let local governments set SB 9 aside in "very high" fire
severity zones inside the burn scars. Malibu and Pasadena used that opening to
bar lot splits and duplexes while rebuilding proceeded.

YIMBY Law sued Newsom, Bass and four jurisdictions, arguing that neither a
governor nor a mayor can suspend a statute the Legislature passed. Neither city
litigated that question to a ruling. "For people who are living, or hoping to
live, or hoping to move back to Malibu and Pasadena, SB 9 is back," said Sonja
Trauss, YIMBY Law's executive director. "The writing is on the wall."

## The case each side makes

The housing argument is about money. Rebuilding costs have run ahead of what many
insurance settlements cover, and a second unit on a lot is an asset: rental income
to service a construction loan, or a parcel that can be sold to fund the rebuild
of the first. On this reading, suspending SB 9 in the burn zone took an option
away from fire survivors at the moment they most needed it.

The opposing argument is about getting out. Malibu depends heavily on Pacific
Coast Highway, and Pasadena's fire-exposed neighborhoods sit on hillside streets
that were already difficult during the January evacuations. Residents and some
officials argued that adding units to those blocks adds cars to roads that had
been overwhelmed within living memory.

Both are serious. It is worth being precise about what SB 9 does and does not do
in relation to the second one: it permits an owner to build more, it does not
require anyone to, and how much additional density actually materializes in a burn
zone is an empirical question that will not be answered for years. Whether that
marginal density measurably changes evacuation times is a question neither side
has resolved with evidence, and the settlements did not resolve it either. They
resolved who has the authority to decide.

## What is still open

The settlements cover Malibu and Pasadena only. The City of Los Angeles, Los
Angeles County, Newsom and Bass are still defending the underlying case, which
means the central legal question, whether an executive order can suspend a housing
statute, remains live.

For homeowners in Pasadena, the practical change is immediate: applications are
being accepted now. In Malibu the change comes by the end of September.

## Sources

- [Two cities burned in LA fires settle YIMBY lawsuit](https://calmatters.org/housing/2026/07/yimby-sb9-malibu-pasadena/)
- [SB 9 (2021), Housing development: approvals](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB9)