Triplex Built Instead of Duplex : $10,000 Fine Levied Over Faked Coastal Permit

A $10,000 fine has been assessed against the owners and agents of an Ocean Beach apartment project in what has been termed one of the most blatant violations of state Coastal Commission regulations in the agency’s history.

Superior Court Judge Mack P. Lovett ordered the $10,000 in civil penalties to be paid to the state commission by May 15. The case involved a coastal permit granted for a duplex at 4825 Long Branch Ave. that apparently was altered and submitted to obtain a city building permit for a triplex, officials said.

The violation was discovered by an Ocean Beach Planning Board member who was passing out leaflets in the neighborhood and noticed that there were too many units on the 5,000-square-foot lot. An investigation by the Coastal Commission staff turned up a permit application on which the word “duplex” was apparently changed to “triplex,” officials said. The probe also discovered an earlier violation--a false statement in the permit application listing an existing building as a single-family home when it actually was a duplex.

Identity Unknown

“It was difficult to determine who actually committed the alleged fraud,” said Assistant Atty. Gen. Peter Kaufman, who handled the civil case. Who was involved in altering the documents to obtain a city building permit for a triplex was never determined, he said: “Everyone was pointing fingers at everyone else.”

The civil penalties levied by Judge Lovett reflected this situation. He ordered the property owners, Tom Tift and Perryann Azevedo, to pay $7,400 of the fine; the designers, Michael Palmer & Associates and David Hedgecock, were ordered to pay the remaning $2,600. San Diego Best Builders, the contractor, and its principals, Robert W. Chatham and James Williams, have been bankrupt and out of business for about 18 months, according to their lawyer, and were not named in the judgment.

None of the defendants or their attorneys responded to telephone requests for comment.

A second Coastal Commission violation involving San Diego Best Builders and the Palmer firm occurred earlier at 4854 Long Branch Ave., where a coastal permit was granted to raze a 50-year-old one-bedroom cottage and build a three-bedroom, single-family residence. A city building inspector discovered that a duplex was being constructed on the 2,500-square-foot lot, against both Coastal Commission and city zoning regulations.

Commission officials fear that the Ocean Beach cases and about 700 other illegal actions discovered by the agency since its inception in the mid-1970s may be only the tip of the iceberg of permit violations, because there are not enough inspectors to visit every site where a coastal permit is granted. Most violations are discovered by outside parties and reported to the Coastal Commission.

Nancy Cave, statewide enforcement coordinator for the commission, acknowledged that, without citizens and government agencies to blow the whistle on violators, the agency would be virtually helpless to enforce its rulings--designed to preserve the state’s coastline and to protect public beach access. The two Ocean Beach cases were good examples, she said.

“With 1,100 miles of coastline and less than 120 people in the agency, there is no way that we can police coastal regulations ourselves,” Cave said. “Enforcement is only one small part of our work. I would estimate that 90% to 95% of the reports of possible violations come to us from the public and other agencies.”

Cave, in San Diego this week to confer with the agency’s regional director, Chuck Damm, said that the two Ocean Beach cases were “blatant attempts to circumvent Coastal Commission procedures.”

Damm said that his San Diego County staff will continue to be responsive to reports of permit violations and will intensify checking them out in an attempt to tighten enforcement.

Damm said that he considered grading violations in terms of seriousness. For example, the carving up of natural terrain without regard to permit restrictions, or without coastal permits, would be “a much more serious matter than a zoning violation,” he said.

Ocean Beach watchdog Mark Dodge spotted the Long Branch Avenue violation when he was distributing meeting leaflets in his district late in 1984. He reported his concerns to the Ocean Beach Planning Board, which, in turn, reported the violation to the regional office of the Coastal Commission.

Remodeled to Duplex

Deborah Lee, a planning analyst in the San Diego office of the commission, said that drawn-out negotiations with the property owners resulted in an agreement that the triplex built on their property would be converted back to a duplex, resulting in a total of five living units on two adjacent lots. The settlement was within city zoning codes and Coastal Commission regulations, she added.

Dixie Brien, an Ocean Beach Planning Board member, said that the board routinely plays watchdog on all new building and remodeling projects within the community.

“There are still a few of us environmental nuts around who will tie ourselves to a tree to save the tree,” Brien said, “and it’s a good thing we are here, because there are a lot of people trying to bend the rules.”

The Azevedo-Tift case was referred to the county district attorney’s office for investigation of possible criminal fraud charges. Anthony Samson, head of the fraud division, said Wednesday that the criminal investigation had been shelved because “we feel that the civil prosecution and penalties are more appropriate.”