Malibu Proven to Favor Celebrities and Developers Over Fire Victims
City Threatens Fire Victim After Celebrity Complaint, Yet Ignores Clear Code Violations Raised by Another Victim Who Spent $1M and 7 Years Trying to Rebuild
Malibu, CA — July 9, 2025 — FireRebuild.com announces a free new service to help fire victims protect themselves from the City of Malibu’s negligence, incompetence, and selective enforcement by sharing stories and knowledge of their fire rebuild experience. Seven years after the devastating 2018 Woolsey Fire, many victims are still unable to rebuild, not because of fire damage, but because of obstacles created by the City itself.
FireRebuild.com points to a disturbing double standard. When celebrities Patrick Dempsey and Jillian Fink complained about debris on a fire victim’s lot following the 2024 Franklin Fire, the City responded immediately, not with help or compassion, but with threatening legal letters from the City Attorney, even though the victim had complied with all city deadlines.
The organization highlights a disturbing pattern: while the city swiftly threatens a 2024 Franklin Fire victim following a celebrity complaint, it has ignored clear code violations that have prevented a 2018 Woolsey Fire victim from rebuilding her home for seven years and at a cost of over $1 million, effectively rezoning her property into a trailer park and allowing an adjacent unpermitted excavation to collapse a crucial access road.
Instead of protecting the fire victim’s rights or enforcing its own codes, the City’s actions have prevented her from either selling the burned lot or ever rebuilding her home. FireRebuild.com says this case exemplifies the City’s systemic failure to treat all residents equally, especially those without celebrity status or political influence. FireRebuild.com hopes other fire victims will read this story to better protect themselves from both bankruptcy and mental anguish.
Trailer Park
The City of Malibu has effectively rezoned the fire victim’s adjacent lot into a commercial trailer park, allowing activity never permitted under its residential zoning laws. A developer who was not a fire victim exploited the fire rebuild code by purchasing a burned lot at 7004 Birdview Avenue and installing multiple unpermitted structures, including at least five prefabricated homes and an Airstream trailer, all of which are illegally rented for profit.
These structures now obstruct the neighboring fire victim’s ocean view and pose serious environmental and Coastal Commission violations, including an outdoor shower that drains directly off the cliff.
Despite the fire victim providing city officials, including Code Enforcement Manager Doug Clevenger, with extensive documentation of these violations, the City has refused to act. Internal emails confirm city staff’s awareness of the situation. Yet instead of enforcing the law, current Code Enforcement Manager Carrie Rios has indicated a plan to legalize the illegal structures without penalties. In March 2025, tensions escalated when the trailer park developer harassed the fire victim and physically blocked her and Councilmember Haylynn Conrad from entering her property. Police were dispatched, but greeted the trailer park developer with a fist bump.
Road Collapse
A private access road serving several fire victims’ properties, including 7010 Birdview Avenue, collapsed in 2023 due to unpermitted excavation at 7006 Birdview. The developer, not a fire victim, demolished the existing home and dug a 20-foot-deep hole for a basement without permits, then abandoned the site. The unstable excavation eventually caused the road to fail and encroached four feet onto the fire victim’s property.
Despite at least five confirmed code violations and hazardous conditions, the City refunded the developer’s $80,000 grading bond. Code Enforcement Officer Khuong Truong dismissed the obvious road collapse in official emails, falsely attributing it to “storm erosion,” and advised the fire victim to “pursue civil action,” stating the City would not get involved.
Incredibly, in October 2024, the City did get involved and considered 7006’s expired permit vested this was the permit in which the illegal grading first took place. The permit being vested allows for construction to commence and further grants all entitlements without any conditions, despite the unresolved road collapse and based on fraudulent photo submissions with provable false statements by the developer. City Geologist Lauren Doyle later admitted the permit was issued “by accident” but could not be revoked, even though Lauren had previously assured her for five years that no permit would be granted to the developer until the excavation causing damage to the road was repaired.
Adding further insult, the City revoked the fire victim’s own valid permit issued in 2022. She remains blocked from rebuilding her home because of the now permanently unsafe road, a condition caused entirely by an adjacent developer violating city rules. Because the road remains impassable, she is permanently prevented from rebuilding, despite full compliance on her part.
A Second Loss: From Woolsey Fire to Palisades Fire
After being unable to rebuild, the fire victim used her SCE settlement to purchase a new home in late 2024, only to lose that home in the 2025 Palisades Fire. The current Mayor of Malibu, Marianne Riggins, who has driven past the illegal trailer park and the collapsed road every day for over five years on her way to City Hall, even sent the fire victim text messages suggesting she should give up on rebuilding and “just sell the lot.”
But selling is impossible. A lis pendens tied to a civil lawsuit clouds the title, and the City’s selective enforcement has effectively turned her once ocean-view parcel into an unmarketable dumping ground next to an unregulated trailer park.
The double fire victim (2018 Woolsey Fire and 2025 Palisades Fire) has now spent seven years and over $1 million attempting to rebuild. When she confided in City Geologist Lauren Doyle that she was experiencing suicidal thoughts, triggered by the emotional toll of repeated losses and learning the neighbor responsible for collapsing her access road had been rewarded with a permit, her plea for help was met not with compassion but betrayal. Instead of offering support, Doyle shared her private disclosure with others, leading to mocking phone calls, including one from her own contractor who answered the line with: “Suicide Hotline, is this [Fire Victim]?”
This cruel mockery of a vulnerable fire victim highlights the City of Malibu’s callous and dehumanizing attitude toward those it has failed. Rather than address its misconduct, the City has treated the victim herself as the problem. Fire victims must learn to not only tolerate this behavior but to accept that the City of Malibu is immune to litigation, and no one cares.
FireRebuild.com Launches Support Initiative
FireRebuild.com is offering free services to help other fire victims understand their rights, share their stories, and avoid the same costly mistakes. More specifically to warn new fire victims to never trust the City of Malibu to follow its own laws.
As clearly seen in the video from the February 20, 2025, Malibu Planning Commission meeting, the mother of two who lost her home in both the 2018 Woolsey Fire and the 2025 Palisades Fire was muted, ignored, and ultimately threatened with removal by the sheriff. After being denied entry to the January 25 meeting and waiting over two hours with her hand raised during the February 20 virtual session, she was silenced once again. Determined to be heard, she drove to City Hall in person, only to be threatened with arrest for trying to speak.
Let this be a warning to all fire victims: in Malibu, speaking out about your mistreatment will result in retaliation and being silenced.
After losing two homes in six years, this fire victim still cannot rebuild, nor can she sell. She invites others to see the situation firsthand by visiting 7010 Birdview Avenue in Malibu.
About FireRebuild.com
FireRebuild.com is a nonprofit resource created by fire victims, for fire victims. We are not even a 501(c)(3), and we do not accept donations or payments. Our only goal is to protect others from the injustices we endured, by sharing the truth, building community, and exposing the failures of the system designed to help us.
Contact: Contact@FireRebuild.com
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