The company leasing the site where the fire started beneath the 10 Freeway hadn’t paid rent for a year, was illegally subletting the property to a dozen businesses and appears to have been in violation of safety standards designed to prevent such calamities.
Apex Development of Calabasas last paid rent in September 2022 and owed more than $600,000 to Caltrans, according to court records.
Apex and owner Ahmad Anthony Nowaid rented the property — and three others along the 10 — through California’s “airspace” leasing program, which rents out state land under and alongside freeways to fund mass transportation projects.
The 10 Freeway fire and the long-standing conditions that fueled the inferno have now raised concerns about the Department of Transportation’s ability to oversee such leases statewide.
“There needs to be an investigation,” Assemblymember Miguel Santiago said. “Caltrans should move at lightning speed to inspect all of these facilities and all our airspaces to ensure that they’re in compliance, to ensure public safety is upheld and to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom at a press conference Monday, Nov. 13, indicated the fire was likely intentionally set by an arsonist and noted the state would be reviewing other airspaces as a result. Four of the state’s leases with Nowaid are along the 10 Freeway, records showed. The leases allowed for the “parking of operable vehicles and open storage,” according to copies included in the eviction cases.
Caltrans did not require Nowaid to obtain fire insurance.
Several of the sites appeared to be in violation of their leases with piles of flammable materials and damaged cars visible from the street.
The original lease between Apex and Caltrans for the land at 1361 Lawrence St., where the freeway fire occurred, expired in 2015 and transitioned to a month-to-month agreement at the time, yet the state didn’t start the eviction process until August this…
Read the full article here
