Bluff safety in Isla Vista came up recently before the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, which was briefed after a large portion of the cliff under the rear of an apartment building fell away in May, leaving the structure’s patio hanging precariously.
Earlier this month, the supervisors were made aware of an emergency permit granted to the property owner of 6625 Del Playa Drive.
The five-unit apartment building is a legal non-conforming structure, meaning it was legal when it was built, but wouldn’t be if it were to be rebuilt today under current codes and restrictions, according to county planner Dianne Black.
Last September, the county’s Building and Safety Division cited the property with a building violation because the structure was encroaching on the required 30-foot setback from the bluff edge, and required that the owner take action.
The property’s owner, John Abedi, has been working with staff to deal with the problem, and applied for a coastal development permit in February for a project to demolish part of the building, construct a structural end wall and a new second-floor building addition, according to county documents.
In May 2015, however, “a wedge shaped portion — approximately 15 feet tall, 45 feet wide, and a 3-foot depth — of the 30-foot high escarpment sloughed off, exposing a portion of the underside of the backyard concrete patio,” a county staff report said.
“After the erosion episode, the rear concrete patio was cantilevered about 3 feet over the escarpment, and the nearest portion of the existing apartment building — the southwest corner — was about 5½ feet from the coastal bluff top edge.”
Black said that erosion in that area is monitored frequently by county staff after “any kind of storm event, and we have a very prescribed process about how close buildings can be to the edge.”
Extremely heavy rains along with wave action are what contributes to the issue, and erosion isn’t constant, but sudden.
“It’s not a steady erosion, it’s more episodic,” Black said. “You can lose a foot or 6 feet in a day, and then there won’t be any erosion for a year or five years.”
Black said that building and safety staff walk the beach after any storm, and inspections take place frequently.
“We’re looking for properties that are 10 feet or closer to the bluff, then we start requiring they do engineering studies. They cut it back in this case,” she said of the recent permit.
Black said the department takes “a careful watch on these situations” because of the threat to public health and safety.
After the incident eroding the bluffs by the Del Playa property, the site was visited by the building engineer inspector, who confirmed the emergency and an emergency permit was approved May 26, allowed for the stabilization of the structure and to move a portion of the building back from the bluff’s edge.
The permit also allows for the construction of a new wall to stabilize and enclose the building.
A larger discussion about the bluff erosion and safety issues in Isla Vista will take place this fall, and county staff will be reporting back to the Board of Supervisors Sept. 2.
— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at lcooper@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
