Mega-Fires in Areas with Prime Luxury Real Estate: Are They "Man-Made-Global-Warming Disasters" or Man-Made Opportunities?

WestCanMan · January 11

I didn't follow the stories about the aftermath of the Hawaii fires very closely because it didn't affect me and it sounded like the conspiracy buzz that follows every major story, but there was some talk about mega-wealthy outsiders swooping into the Hawaii real estate market to capitalize on the tragedy that happened there.

Here's how that story goes...

It's hard to build large luxury estates in areas where there are a bunch of little lots because that requires decades of buying and waiting and buying and waiting, and then the last holdouts with strategically placed lots can ask for the moon. Then there's the hassle of trying to re-zone land, substantially changing the form and character of neighbourhoods, which isn't usually allowed, and even then, how much is your luxury estate worth if there's low-income housing nearby? What's a wealthy guy to do?

But when a fire comes along and razes an entire region where there's prime real estate, suddenly most of the hassles of these low-rent neighbours go away. Instead of a bunch of middle-class "squatters" occupying prime real estate until the day they die, an insufferable 40 years later, all those smelly little people just end up homeless, waiting on insurance money while their their entire life is on pause and they're in a state of terrible chaos.

For the mega-wealthy, looking for prime real estate to build on, this creates a unique and amazing opportunity. Suddenly there's a vast new area where there are hundreds or even thousands of peons clamouring to get rid of their smoking, empty, prime ocean-view lots. The re-zoning hassles are gone because there is no more neighbourhood. A whale can come in and swallow up lots, freeing the grief-stricken victims from poverty, and the shape of the entire community is changed, 'for the better'.

It's gentrification on a middle class to mega wealthy class scale.

Now, all of this is just something I pulled out of my ass this morning while I was listening to Adam Corolla talking about how hard it is was to get building permits in the area by the "PCH", which I can only guess means "Pacific Coast Highway" or something like that. Apparently Suzanne Somers and her hubby moved from there after trying for 40 years to get building permits. Well, how easy will it be to get building permits now? Can these municipalities just keep saying "no" to everything, and force everyone to leave their lots to nature?

Of course not, that's their tax base. They need that land to be developed so that they can start squeezing cash out of them again. If people aren't allowed to build they'll stop paying taxes there, but obviously that's not gonna happen on lots by the water in California.

So back to gentrification... Think of a sports arena where they have no luxury boxes.... in an area from row 21-25 that's ten seats wide there are 50 peons sitting, paying $50 each, that's $2,500 per game. If you could have a luxury box there, you can bring in several times that much money in that area.

Gentrification works the same way on a municipal level. Get rid of a smelly 4-level rent-controlled walk-up and put in a 30-story luxury high-rise and your tax base just went up by 10,000%.

Get rid of 20,000 middle-class homes and turn that area into 100 luxury estates, 5,000 executive homes, a few gated luxury-townhome communities, and 10,000 condo units, and your tax base increases massively.

Instead of 2 lawyers, 2 doctors and a guy who owns a car dealership living on five 9,000 sq ft lots, you get the Sultan of Blahblahstan building a mansion on 45,000 sq ft so that he can visit there once every 4 years. That 45,000 sq ft now brings in several times as much property tax as before, and you've appeased the uber-wealthy. the influence of your community has grown.

Think of people looking at a cute forest that's 3 acres in size that was turned into - the neighbourhood where you live now. It used to be one thing, now it's another. Well, they're not making any more waterfront property, and the demand for mega-luxury homes isn't going down. Somethin's gotta give.

The people with mega-yachts and private jets who say things like "Man-made global warming will destroy the planet. Don't act surprised when your neighbourhood burns to the ground" are now watching the message go out "Oh look, a bunch of houses in the most desirable land in the United States just burned down. First Hawaii, now California. THAT WAS BECAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING!!!! Go out and yell at some middle-class peons who drive hybrid SUVs again."

The thing we all need to keep a close eye on in those areas of LA is this:

will the same number of new homes built on the same size lots, or is this going to result in a massive re-shaping of that area?
will this just end up being an opportunity for mega-wealthy people to snatch up multiple lots and create an entirely different landscape, with massive estates?
will these areas be primarily owned by out-of-country investors who just want to come for a few weeks of the year, like we see in Vancouver?

Theoretically the fires in Hawaii made it easier for mega-wealthy land-grabbers to swoop in and grab multiple lots to consolidate for new luxury estates: https://fortune.com/2023/08/16/hawaii-maui-fires-marc-benioff-salesforce-mark-zuckerberg-meta-donating/

From Marc Benioff to Mark Zuckerberg to Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley’s billionaires have acquired huge plots of land in Hawaii. Here’s how they’re responding to the devastating fire

I don't even know if it's true because I haven't really looked into it, but if it is, then suddenly these multiple fires look more like a "winning formula for global elites" than a natural disaster.

What are the chances that these two massive fires in the US were both in areas where the wealthiest people in the world want to buy up lots to create mega-estates?

I honestly don't know. It just looks really fishy. There are lots of places where there could be massive residential neighbourhood fires like this, but they happened in the two most expensive areas of the US, and in both instances the richest people in the world - the climate change hypocrites - will benefit. Is that hypocrites, or hypocrats, as in a class of people?

Edited January 11 by WestCanMan

robosmith · January 11

40 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

I didn't follow the stories about the aftermath of the Hawaii fires very closely because it didn't affect me

I don't even know if it's true because I haven't really looked into it

^The most accurate 2 things in your post above.

WestCanMan · January 11

15 minutes ago, robosmith said:

^The most accurate 2 things in your post above.

It's all accurate. You just see what you want to see.

Did you do a deep dive into whether or not the fires were suspicious? I did not. I chose to ignore the conspiracy theories because there just seems to be no end to them: