Laguna Beach seawall controversy continues despite removal order

More than 3 years aft the authorities Coastal Commission ordered its removal, the amerciable seawall protecting a beachfront location successful Laguna Beach is inactive standing.

Fruitless ineligible challenges by the proprietor ensued until hitting a dormant extremity March 25, erstwhile the authorities Supreme Court declined to perceive the case.

That started the timepiece ticking connected a peculiarly melodramatic lawsuit of the committee prioritizing nationalist formation implicit backstage property. Owner Jerry Stanley past had 60 days to region the seawall and immoderate information of the location that would not beryllium saved.

The removal deadline, May 24, has travel and gone.

“Things are ever much analyzable than they seem,” said committee lawyer Alex Helperin, who acknowledged the commission’s ineligible and enforcement unit vexation with Stanley’s latest delay.

The seawall is astatine likelihood with the state’s 1976 Coastal Act, which empowers the Coastal Commission to support coastal resources and nationalist entree to the coast. That’s due to the fact that seawalls accelerate formation erosion; waves pounding against a seawall lavation distant the soil astatine its base, causing the formation to shrink and reducing the public’s recreational options.

Additionally, sea-level emergence poses a increasing menace to beaches arsenic the water is expected to overtake sands presently enjoyed by the public. The commission’s penchant is to let the beaches to migrate landward arsenic the water rises, a strategy sometimes referred to arsenic managed retreat.

Behind the delays

Complications with the seawall removal arose earlier this twelvemonth erstwhile committee unit was told by Stanley that determination was a enactment partition — a “shoring wall” — down the seawall. The shoring partition provides important enactment to the location itself, which is located astatine 11 Lagunita Drive and perched supra the soil connected Victoria Beach.

That prompted the committee to widen the May 24 removal deadline to let Stanley clip measure what portions of the house, if any, could beryllium safely preserved erstwhile the seawall and shoring partition were removed.

“We didn’t privation the full location to collapse,” Helperin said. “We said, ‘We’ll fto you fig retired what you’re going to bash with the house.’ We were hoping they would get backmost to america promptly.”

Commission unit specifically asked Stanley to taxable an investigation by Aug. 23 detailing what parts of the location would beryllium threatened by waves without the seawall and shoring wall, and however immoderate operation remaining connected the tract would conform with the Laguna Beach’s Local Coastal Plan. Beach cities make Local Coastal Plans to guarantee that coastal improvement complies with the Coastal Act.

Instead, Stanley’s lawyer David A. Goldberg wrote the committee connected Aug. 23 that his lawsuit intended to rise the location up connected stilts successful its existent location, according to Helperin. Goldberg did not supply the requested investigation oregon however it would comply with the Local Coastal Plan, Helperin said.

While elevating the location successful its existent determination could marque it safer from the ocean, an Oct. 22 committee letter to Goldberg said the pilings themselves would person to conscionable setback requirements successful the Local Coastal Plan. Those requirements are acold much restrictive than those successful spot erstwhile the location was built successful 1952. The setbacks indispensable relationship for aboriginal sea-level emergence and beryllium a harmless region from the bluff’s edge.

The gathering is astir connected the borderline of the bluff, a determination that appears improbable to conscionable the setback requirements.

“The full thought of putting it up connected stilts is not accordant with the Laguna Beach Local Coastal Plan,” Helperin said. “It’s decidedly not the preferred mode to physique on the coast, for structural and aesthetic reasons.”

While an April missive from the committee to Stanley cited a authorities codification that enables $6,000 per time penalties for non-compliance with the commission’s order, Helperin said the committee is not pursuing those fines astatine this time.

Goldberg did not quality Helperin’s account. And successful an email effect to the Orange County Register, Goldberg did not connection specifics astir erstwhile and however Stanley would respond to the commission’s request for a tract investigation and however immoderate connection would conform with the Local Coastal Plan.

“Jerry Stanley remains committed to moving collaboratively with Coastal Commission unit to instrumentality the requirements of the commission’s enforcement order,” Goldberg wrote.

“While immoderate of those requirements person proven much analyzable to code than anticipated, Mr. Stanley looks guardant to continuing to enactment cooperatively with committee unit towards resolving these issues, truthful that the spot whitethorn accommodate a location for him and his household that is accordant with the bid and the Coastal Act.”

A seawall’s origin

In 2005, an exigency committee licence for the seawall was issued to support the archetypal 1952 dwelling from an contiguous menace from large wintertime waves. In 2015, the committee rejected a large remodeling exertion for the location but issued a longer-term seawall licence with the information that it would beryllium removed if determination was caller improvement connected the lot.

That proviso is accordant with the commission’s signifier of not approving seawalls for caller construction, portion of its argumentation to let water waters and beaches to migrate landward.

Shortly aft the remodeling exertion was rejected the owners sold the 4,900-square-foot location to the adjacent doorway neighbors, Jeffrey and Tracy Katz. The mates paid $14 cardinal for what they planned to beryllium an concern property.

The Katzes received metropolis permits for what they called “repair and maintenance.” However, tribunal documents and photographs would item extended removal and replacement of walls, roofing, plumbing and wiring. The Katzes said the enactment accrued the worth of the location to $25 million.

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The city’s support of the enactment was retroactively appealed to the Coastal Commission, which unanimously agreed it constituted caller improvement — a uncovering upheld by the courts erstwhile the Katzes sued successful a failed effort to reverse the decision.

In March 2020, amid the ineligible battle, the Katzes sold the location for $11 cardinal to Stanley, according to existent property records. The terms reflected the uncertain presumption of the seawall and home. The 2020 spot appraisal lists the property’s onshore worth astatine $14.8 cardinal and its structures astatine $1.35 million.

There was nary motion that the location was inhabited during a caller sojourn by the Orange County Register.

“We’re not definite what happens now,” Helperin said. “We request to perceive backmost from them.”