In departing from 4Leaf, county thinks it’s ready to handle next phase of CZU recovery

After the emotional shock of losing his home in the 2020 CZU wildfire started to wear off, Boulder Creek resident Brian Dean said a sort of logistical anxiety set in. 

“There was a fear about working with Santa Cruz County” on all of the permits required for a rebuild, Dean said. “The county has been known to take forever and can be really difficult to deal with. I hear horror stories about plan reviews taking months.” 

However, in 2021, the county contracted with San Francisco-based construction firm 4Leaf to run its newly formed Recovery Permit Center, which would provide bespoke permitting and inspection services specifically for CZU fire victims trying to rebuild their homes. 

People who worked with 4Leaf said it was a bright spot under the long shadow of CZU, helping to shepherd those who were suddenly forced into the bureaucratic blizzard of permits, inspections and environmental studies.  Dean, who is nearing completion of his home, said 4Leaf had been “easy to work with” and brought “compassion” for what everyone had gone through. 

Now, more than four years after CZU fires, the county is planning to phase out its agreement with 4Leaf and take over what staff says is the final stretch of permitting for the wildfire recovery rebuild. The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to move away from 4Leaf. Given the county’s reputation for agonizing turnaround times on building permit applications, mountain residents in the recovery pipeline are now worried. 

Tonje Switzer, the executive director of the county’s Long Term Recovery Group and who has been helping fire victims through the rebuild process, said the 4Leaf partnership, and the firm’s commitment to 10-day response timelines (though not necessarily approvals) had been working. Throwing fire victims into the county’s general workload could create more obstacles, she said, but there is also an emotional dimension to the move. 

“4Leaf has been very knowledgeable about the disaster recovery process, and is very well-versed in trauma-informed care and how to address people who are still grieving over what they lost,” Switzer said. “That can’t be easily replaced.” 

Initially, Matt Machado, director of the county’s Community Development and Infrastructure Department, told Lookout that the county would not be offering the 4Leaf’s same priority to CZU victims and that the county would be “treating everyone in the system the same.”

However, on Monday, department spokesperson Tiffany Martinez said the county planned to give CZU fire victims special preference. The county planned to uphold the Recovery Permit Center’s commitment to 10-day reviews and five-day second reviews. Martinez said the county would also carve out appointment slots with staff specifically for CZU victims. 

“In short, we’re absorbing the services provided by 4Leaf and will continue to offer the same services to folks affected by the CZU fire,” Martinez said via email. 

Hundreds of people remain somewhere in the reconstruction pipeline and will likely require some county interface where 4Leaf might have stepped in previously. About 700 lots with actual dwellings burned, according to the county assessor’s office, and 127 single-family homes have been rebuilt and are now occupied. 

According to data tracked by the county, the permitting lift had been much lighter for the Recovery Permit Center over the past few years. In 2021 and 2022, the two years following the fire, the center handled a total of 386 preclearance permits (which weigh fire, geologic and environmental health hazards, as well as zoning), 216 building permit applications and approved 189 construction permits. In the two years since, the workload has fallen by about 70%, to 100 preclearance permits, 71 building permit applications and 75 construction permit approvals. 

Still, people like Pia Hoffman, who just began construction on her Ben Lomond rebuild, say they are wary of CZU victims’ needs being diluted by a county permitting system increasingly weighed down by housing development applications.  

“​​It’s not my fault that my house burned down. This is not something I chose, yet my recovery effort will be added to the same queue as construction firms building offices and people who are building or enhancing homes by choice,” Hoffman said. “I shouldn’t have to compete against people with experience, or who have the luxury of time. This is all a learning process for me. It’s like a second full-time job.”

Since 2021, the Recovery Permit Center has cost the county more than $2.3 million in total. Recovering some savings on that bill comes at a crucial time for the county, which has found itself falling further into dire financial straits over the past few years as federal disaster cost reimbursements have slowed. 

However, Machado said the county’s motivation was not financial, calling this timeline the “natural transition for the 4Leaf issue.”  

“Some people on county staff thought we could have transitioned six months ago,” Machado said. “People are nervous about the unknowns, but we are equally qualified to do this work and we’re going to provide the same level of service.”

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