Good Fences Haven’t Made For Good Neighbors in Del Mar

You don’t have to have fragile coastal bluffs to have seawalls--or seawall controversies. Just ask seaside homeowners in Del Mar.

In that North County coastal city, where many seawalls have been erected to protect beachfront homes against ocean flooding, homeowners have proven willing to fight for the right to protect their properties--setting up an atmosphere as turbulent as any winter storm.

In 1988, Del Mar voters adopted a Beachfront Protection Initiative to dismantle numerous seawalls that many claimed had infringed on public right of way. The ordinance required property owners to remove any wall that jutted more than five feet onto the public beach.

Within weeks, the city was swamped with at least a dozen lawsuits from homeowners who claimed the ordinance illegally seized their property without compensation.

The homeowners, many of whom claim beach ownership to the mean high-tide line, have also charged that the city established an arbitrary line to distinguish just where the public beach starts.

Two years later, while it has yet to order the removal of a single wall, the city is working to settle some of the lawsuits out of court.

This Wednesday, the litigants in at least half a dozen unsettled suits are scheduled to meet before Vista Superior Court Supervising Judge Kevin Midlam to explore ways to work out the disputes.

“At least we’ve got people talking to each other,” Midlam said. “And, with everyone together in one room, we just may find a solution to the problem.”

Ferdinand Fletcher is willing to give anything a try. The 78-year-old retired lawyer steadfastly insists that for generations his family has maintained a break wall to protect their five properties in the 1800 block of Ocean Front Avenue.

But, when the wall was damaged by heavy storms in 1983, Fletcher ran into a dispute with the city over whether he could rebuild the structure.

After receiving a temporary permit for the project, Fletcher built a 175-foot-long wall in 1985 and has since refused to dismantle it, officials say.

“Since 1927, we’ve maintained the right a keep a seawall there for protection,” Fletcher said. “Nothing’s changed as far as we’re concerned.”

Dwight Worden, a well-known environmental attorney hired by the city, said officials are trying to work out a deal with Fletcher to have the wall removed by 1993, and deliberations continued recently behind closed doors.

Carlsbad attorney Eric T. Lodge, whose firm is handling lawsuits filed by four property owners in the 1700 block of Ocean Front, said closed-doors discussions are going on with the city in his case as well.

“Our position is that our clients own to the mean-tide line and have historically exercised dominion and control over it,” he said. “The city is infringing on our property rights.

“The line they’ve drawn--telling us to remove all seawalls to the west of it--is unreasonable and takes substantial chunks out of my clients’ properties. The line comes right in front of patios and fences outside their homes.”

The homeowners’ claim of ownership to the mean-tide line has been disputed by local beach preservationists and the state Coastal Commission. Moreover, activists say that a 15-foot-wide public easement granted decades ago through the property makes the seawalls impermissible.

Bud Emerson, a leading proponent of the beachfront protection initiative, said the walls have robbed the public of as much as 70,000 square feet of cherished beach space.

“I’m just as zealous about getting the beach protected as these people are,” Emerson said. “But I want it to be done on their property, not by taking large chunks of the public beach.

Emerson, who says he takes daily walks along the beach from his home several blocks away, said many beach-goers wrongfully assume that the property inside the wall belongs to the homeowner.

“At high tide, I’ve seen people trying to find a dry spot outside the wall and instead lying in the wet sand,” he said. “I told them, “You can go behind the wall. That isn’t their property.’

“But they wouldn’t believe me. They just laid there in the wet sand.”

The solution, Emerson and others say, lies in replenishing the sand that once carpeted the shoreline. “We need to feed the beach,” he said. “With nice, wide, sandy beaches, we wouldn’t need seawalls for protection.”