Maryam Zar: Palisades’ Commercial Recovery Hinges on Federal Investment

Good morning. I'm Maryam Zar, CEO of the Malibu Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce.

Our Chamber represents the businesses that give Pacific Palisades and Malibu their economic vitality: restaurants, retailers, professional services, health and wellness providers, contractors, independent entrepreneurs, and the many small businesses that make our communities places where people want to live, work, and gather.

When the Palisades Fire swept through our community in January 2025, we didn't just lose homes. We lost an economic ecosystem.

We lost storefronts, offices, restaurants, and workplaces. We lost businesses that had served generations of Palisadians. And even those businesses that survived the flames lost something equally essential: their customers.

With so many residents still displaced, our local businesses are trying to survive in a community whose customer base has been dramatically diminished.

Think about what that means. A restaurant can reopen, but who will fill its tables? A retailer can restock its shelves, but who will walk through the door? A service provider can return to an office, but where are the clients?

Our commercial recovery and residential recovery are inseparable.

And there is another economic reality we have to confront.

Rebuilding a commercial property today is not the same financial proposition it was before the fire. Construction costs, insurance, financing, and the uncertainty of future revenues have fundamentally changed the equation.

Some property owners will struggle to make reconstruction pencil out. Some businesses cannot afford to wait years for the buildings they once occupied to return. And some may never reopen without meaningful financial assistance.

This is why federal recovery funding is so important.

We need more than assistance to replace what was destroyed. We need investment that makes recovery economically viable.

That means capital to rebuild commercial properties. Affordable financing and grants that help small businesses reopen, relocate, and survive while their customer base returns. Infrastructure investment that restores the safety and reliability of our roads, utilities, and public spaces.

And critically, we need funding that helps displaced residents come home.

Because every family that returns represents more than a rebuilt house. It represents customers for a neighborhood restaurant, students for a local school, clients for a small business, and neighbors who bring life back to our streets.

At the Chamber, we're working every day to support the businesses that remain, welcome new businesses, and help restore commercial activity. But local determination cannot substitute for the scale of federal investment this disaster requires.

We cannot expect a devastated community to finance its own recovery while the economic foundation that sustained it remains fractured.

That is why we stand alongside the Department of Angels and our recovery partners in calling on Congress to provide meaningful, comprehensive federal disaster recovery funding.

The measure of our success cannot simply be how many buildings are reconstructed.

It must be whether families can afford to return, whether businesses can afford to reopen, whether jobs are restored, and whether the community we rebuild is economically viable for the people who call it home.

That's what full recovery looks like. And that's what federal investment must help us achieve.

Thank you.