And other Nova News

*Photo above:* 1:12 scale model of the Cozy Cottage on the site where the first customer unit will be built in the Eaton Fire burn zone.

We are committed to helping our community return home after the devastating Los Angeles fires. Not only did our own friends and neighbors experience loss of shelter: our entire area of Los Angeles County has been experiencing a worsening housing crisis for decades as new people experiencing homelessness every day. The July 2026 results of the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count reveal a 3.3% increase in unsheltered homelessness in LA County compared to the previous year — despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent to reverse this trend — and a gap of 473,000 affordable homes. Both fire survivors and Angelenos need alternative affordable housing solutions quickly.

At Nova Cottage Co., our mission is to permanently and comfortably house as many people as quickly as possible, using technology and strategies that are completely innovative, and we’re making significant strides towards that mission. This mission starts at home, right in our own backyard of Altadena.

Altadena Cozy Cottage is coming soon!

Nova Cottage Co. is building our first Cozy Cottage for a customer in the backyard of a property affected by the Eaton Fire. It’s important that the permitting and construction process we follow be replicable, because more homes built means more neighbors returning to their beloved community.

This home is permitted both as a fire rebuild and as an ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit). As of writing, we have received our first round of approval from Los Angeles County and have submitted more documentation for our next set of stamps. The County has committed to returning comments for fire rebuilds in only 10 business days and providing approval 5 days after re-submittal. Those timelines are very fast for permitting, which usually has no timer at all. Our Cozy Cottage is designed to avoid many of the hurdles of permitting, and our design timelines are much faster because - well - we’ve designed the home already! Using our catalog of Cozy Cottages means a family gets their keys that much sooner.

We’ll be bringing you all along for the ride as we continue to permit, build and finally house an Altadenan in this ADU.

Piloting the Nova Grid

Last year, we were recognized by the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator as a startup building novel, critical fire-resilient infrastructure. Now, a pilot project with LACI, which demonstrates key components of the water-and-power management system we call the Nova Grid, is underway. This off-grid utility system manages potable water distribution, blackwater treatment, and energy generation and storage — all in a single, cohesive envelope — and is essential for eliminating time and cost delays for housing projects. Innovations like these allow our fire-affected neighbors to return home quickly after a crisis.

Excitingly, we received packages of components for the pilot project’s electrical system from our partner Schneider Electric this month. We are grateful to receive their generous support via technical advising and quality hardware! Our team is on track to complete the design in September and commence building our prototype of the Nova Grid, which will be showcased at the Cozy Cottage model home later this year.

Media Features

We achieved some local fame via a feature on the cover of the Pasadena Weekly! It was humbling and gratifying to see printed copies around town. You can read the full article on our team’s mission, our company’s origin, and our incubator Idealab’s overall vision to use technology to improve the world around us.

Nova Cottage Co. makes houses that can go anywhere. Its estimation is that it can build a home in a fifth of the time and for a fifth of the cost as traditional construction. “We’re not just constructing the housing shell,” said Paules. “Not only have we designed a beautiful livable home, a flat pack kit in a factory, but also the infrastructure, the foundation.”

Nova is also honored to be featured in the Los Angeles Times in an article that discussed the use of prefab housing to rapidly and affordably recover from disasters. We discussed our novel vision for residential construction in order to bring not just fire-displaced residents but all housing-insecure Californians back home.

Idealab founder Bill Gross said he embraced the concept as an alternative to the tiny home formula of extremely low-cost structures lacking amenities but requiring tens of thousands of dollars in installation and utility costs. “I think if you can move more of the labor from the field to the factory and do less work in the outdoor rainy complicated situations, not needing cranes, not needing other expensive stuff, you can make the whole thing much more affordable,” Gross said.

Political Advocacy

In July, our CEO, Caroline, testified before the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee at the state capitol in Sacramento. CalMatters quoted her advocating for cottage communities (a form of “missing middle” housing also known as bungalow courts”) as a feasible, beautiful path back home for those recovering from the Eaton Fire. Since then, she has been involved in amendments and advocating to multiple members of the California Legislature on behalf of her neighbors.

Next Steps

We’re extremely grateful to be in a position where we can provide for Altadena what they need most: housing. If you know a fire-affected individual, we’d love to chat with them and show our model home to see how our solution could provide community.