On January 29, 2026, the Small Business Administration told LA wildfire survivors to skip the permit line. Six days after President Trump signed Executive Order 14377, the agency issued regulatory guidance amounting to a single instruction: if your builder has waited more than 60 days for a local permit, have them sign a federal certification form promising compliance with all applicable building codes and start pouring concrete. Two documents uploaded through a portal, no local plan check required.
Five months later, Governor Newsom unveiled the opposite approach: don't skip the review, speed it up.
Archistar's AI PreCheck, an Australian-built platform using computer vision and machine learning to pre-check residential building plans against local zoning and building codes before submission, would catch the deficiencies that bounce applications back, making the system faster rather than eliminating it.
Same disaster, same 16,000 destroyed structures, and two governments reached for opposite tools.
How Self-Certification Works
Under 13 CFR 123.800 et seq., a disaster loan borrower whose permit application has been pending more than 60 days without action can have their builder sign a certification stating that all applicable building codes, health and safety requirements, inspections, and certificate-of-occupancy processes will be met. A borrower submits two forms through MySBA Portal: a Disaster Loan Modification and a Builder's Certification. SBA amends the loan agreement to remove language requiring local permits before construction begins, with false statements carrying civil and criminal penalties.
Narrow scope: only SBA disaster loan-financed projects qualify, and substantive codes and safety standards are not waived. Only the procedural requirement to obtain a permit before breaking ground is preempted.
But the SBA noted that this framework applies to any future disaster in any jurisdiction whose permitting prevents survivors from rebuilding. One sentence in the guidance turned a California wildfire response into a standing federal precedent for preempting local building departments nationwide.
How AI PreCheck Works
Archistar launched its beta in LA on July 15, 2025, taking the opposite philosophical position: permits aren't the problem, but bad submissions are. If architects submit cleaner plans that already pass zoning setbacks, lot coverage, and building code checks, human reviewers downstream process applications faster because they stop sending packages back covered in red marks.
Early data from the Governor's office and Archistar's own reporting (not independently audited) supports this, with like-for-like rebuilds in LA County showing a 54% reduction in staff review time for applications accompanied by an Archistar report compared to those without one, and non-like-for-like rebuilds showing a 36% reduction. First-submission quality jumped to 90%, which matters because every rejection-and-resubmission cycle in LA County adds an average of 43 days. An International Code Council partnership ensures Archistar checks against dynamically updated codes, not PDFs scraped from a county website that might lag 8 to 12 weeks behind new local law, while philanthropic partnerships with LA Rises, Steadfast LA, Autodesk, and Amazon make it free to homeowners.
Where Both Approaches Miss
Consider the number that should end the permitting debate entirely: approximately 6,785 rebuild permits have been issued across all four jurisdictions, according to California's Rebuilding Dashboard. Average agency review time in the City of LA runs 17 days, county review runs 43, and according to state data, permits are moving roughly three times faster than comparable single-family permits issued in the five years before the fires. Newsom's 30-day review benchmark has been met or beaten in most jurisdictions.
Fewer than ten homes have been rebuilt, according to SBA figures.
SBA's own data illuminates the gap: approved disaster loans total $3.4 billion for nearly 13,000 LA borrowers, representing over half of all disaster aid the agency delivered in fiscal year 2025, and less than 25% has been drawn down because borrowers cannot begin construction. Not because they lack a permit, but because insurance payouts are delayed, disputed, or insufficient; because contractor availability in a market needing to rebuild 16,000 structures simultaneously is structurally constrained; because lot-specific conditions like hillside grading, coastal commission review in Malibu's 250-day-average timeline, and soil remediation after fire debris removal do not yield to a faster plan check or a signed federal form.
A Liability Transfer, Not Deregulation
Self-certification does not eliminate the need for code compliance; it eliminates the government reviewer who would have caught noncompliance before the foundation was poured. FEMA retains authority to review construction for health and safety compliance after the fact, but FEMA is not staffed to inspect residential framing in the quantities LA requires, and local inspectors, the ones actually staffed for it, are precisely the ones whose process was bypassed. If a self-certified build fails post-construction review, the homeowner is left holding the bag: your builder signed a federal form, your local inspector never saw the plans, and your recourse depends entirely on whether that builder is still solvent and willing to fix the work.
Archistar solves a real problem in submission quality, but it may be solving one that brute-force staffing increases and CEQA suspensions already addressed. LA County directed $4 million in state grant funding toward additional plan review staff, and review times dropped before AI tools saw wide adoption.
What This Means for You
Rebuilding with an SBA disaster loan? Self-certification exists as an option, and your builder signs a form carrying federal criminal penalties for false statements. Access the forms through SBA's portal, keeping in mind that this does not excuse inspections or certificates of occupancy; it lets you start building before the permit formally clears.
Submitting plans in LA City or County? Run them through AI PreCheck first, because it's free and the data shows 54% review-time reduction for like-for-like rebuilds when an Archistar report accompanies the application. Even if you pursue self-certification, a compliance baseline strengthens the federal certification your builder will sign.
If you are a builder: Both tools address a fraction of the actual problem. Permits have been substantially unlocked. Insurance payouts, concurrent labor demand across the entire LA basin, and material procurement have not, and those are the constraints that will determine your 2026 project timeline, not whether your client's plans pass zoning review in 17 days or 35.
Regardless of financing: If your permit is moving but your insurance payout is stalled or disputed, that is likely the binding constraint. California's Rebuilding Dashboard tracks permit status by jurisdiction. If your insurer is delaying beyond the 15-day acknowledgment or 40-day acceptance deadlines under California's Fair Claims Settlement Practices Regulations, file a complaint with CDI (800-927-4357) and consider a licensed public adjuster to negotiate. Talk to contractors now about 2027 scheduling, because labor in a basin rebuilding 16,000 structures will tighten.
Limitations
We relied on publicly available dashboard data from ca.gov, SBA press releases, and Archistar's published performance metrics; we could not independently verify "fewer than ten homes rebuilt" against LA County's separate report of four completed homes in unincorporated areas. Archistar's 54% review-time reduction and 90% first-submission quality come from the Governor's office and Archistar's own reporting, not an independent audit. SBA self-certification uptake is not publicly reported.
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