Awash in Enmity : Neighbors Bicker Over Seawall as Houses Teeter

Nearly four years ago, when a county drainage pipe broke beneath Fred Kuhlman’s Solana Beach home, the bluff underneath the seaside house crumbled, leaving the house precariously perched on a cliff.

Joseph Steinberg, whose house sits next to Kuhlman’s and is also threatened, wasn’t all that thrilled with the dangling predicament and convinced Kuhlman to join him in an effort to build a $550,000 seawall to protect the cliffs beneath their homes against crashing waves.

Financing Agreement

According to attorneys, an architect and city officials involved in the project, Kuhlman agreed to help finance the seawall.

But, as the oft-delayed project approached completion, Kuhlman made an unexpected announcement at a Solana Beach City Council meeting Monday: He said he doesn’t want the seawall.

Kuhlman apparently balked after he received his share of the bill from Steinberg for nearly $200,000, saying he can’t afford that much.

The city, however, which issued permits for the project and has offered time extensions to complete it, has had enough. The council has issued an ultimatum to Steinberg and Kuhlman: Either finish building the seawall or tear it down.

“If the two property owners do not resolve their differences, the city will file a suit against all parties involved,” said City Atty. Dan Hentschke. “We are faced with a serious threat to the public health, safety and welfare. We have a seawall that is partially

completed and a backfill that hasn’t been filled.

“There’s a huge hole behind the (Kuhlman’s) house and it’s hanging over the edge of a cliff,” Hentschke said. “We’re afraid with winter approaching . . . we could have some fierce storms. We could have a real mess on our hands, like having that house plummet into the hole.”

City May File Suit

If the two neighbors cannot reach an agreement, Hentschke said, the city will file suit as early as Tuesday, asking the courts to compel the parties to finish building the wall or destroy it.

“Of course we want the seawall to be completed,” Hentschke said. “The city approved the building permit in the first place because the wall was to alleviate an emergency situation.

“But, if it’s only partially completed, it won’t serve that purpose, nor does it meet the specifications for which the permit was issued,” Hentschke said. “It might be a Draconian solution, but if that’s the case, we’ll have it torn down as a violation of the permit.”

Actually, the 160-foot-long wall, that ranges in height from 14 to 22 feet, has been completed. But the backfill--replacing the eroded earth--behind the Kuhlman property needs to finished.

Kuhlman declined comment about the situation.

Steinberg, who is on a business trip in Europe, could not be reached for comment.

But Steinberg’s attorney, Robert Kenny, said that, although he hopes the situation can be resolved before the city goes to court, there are some fundamental misunderstandings between the two neighbors.

“Mr. Steinberg never had any intention of paying for Mr. Kuhlman,” Kenny said. “Mr. Steinberg may have been willing to front the money for the seawall, but it has always been our understanding that Mr. Steinberg would receive an equitable reimbursement for the cost of the entire project.”

Kenny said, however, that a written financial agreement was never signed between the two parties.

“But the two have had an oral agreement for years,” Kenny said. “The first time we heard Mr. Kuhlman say he was not expecting to pay for it was Monday night. They (the Kuhlmans) have always acknowledged the fact that they would have to pay for their share of the repairs.”

A similar version of the financial agreement between the two neighbors was given by Lynn Muir of Muir Architects, a Dana Point firm hired by Steinberg to lead the seawall construction.

Three years ago, Muir presented a preliminary cost estimate of $400,000 to both parties. Since then, the project cost has increased by $150,000.

“Although this is a gross oversimplification, I was informed that Mr. Steinberg would absorb two-thirds of the total cost and Mr. Kuhlman, the remaining one-third,” Muir said. “They (the Kuhlmans) questioned how I arrived at the figure, but they never said anything like, ‘go fly a kite we don’t plan to pay anything.’ ”

Steve Apple, the city’s planning director, also found it difficult to understand Kuhlman’s recent position.

He said that, before the city can issue a permit for construction on private property, the city has to obtain the owner’s permission.

“Kuhlman gave us that permission,” Apple said. “There were stretches when Mr. Kuhlman came in three times a week, sometimes daily, to the planning department to check on how the seawall was coming along.”

But it isn’t the city’s concern to worry about the parties’ private financial squabble, Apple said.

“Quite frankly, who pays for private sector projects is none of our business,” Apple said. “We just want this quickly remedied, because statistically, the longer nothing is done, the risk increases that the house is going to go down.”