LAGUNA BEACH : City Faces Dilemma of Eroding Bluff

City officials still remember that tall palm tree that graced the bluff overlooking the ocean at Heisler Park in Laguna Beach.

“Over time we lost that tree,” Laguna Beach Municipal Services Director Terry Brandt said recently. “Now we are losing the sidewalk.”

About 20 feet of the sidewalk overlooking the ocean near Jasmine Street and Cliff Drive slid 2 to 3 feet toward the ocean several weeks ago, and now the City Council must decide whether it wants to spend the money to prevent further erosion.

The council will be asked at its regular meeting tonight to spend $350,000 to build a rock revetment on the beach and restore the sidewalk.

Brandt estimated that 5 to 10 feet of the bluff has been lost during the last 40 years.

“It’s a question of how valuable is this park space to us,” the city official said. “Do you want to spend $350,000 to try to save the existing walkway?”

City staffers and a consulting firm considered alternatives, including building a seawall, installing caissons to buttress the bluff, or doing nothing.

But seawalls, which can cause sand to erode from beaches, have created controversy previously, City Manager Kenneth C. Frank said.

In addition to helping prevent erosion, the rock revetment could help shore up a threatened stairway that provides public access to the beach, Frank said.

The major disadvantage to the rock revetment alternative, city officials said, is that it further reduces the space in the existing tidal area.

If nothing is done, Brandt said, continuing landslides “could creep even further up the hill and undermine some of the shuffle board area” adjacent to the walkway. Nearby lawn bowling greens, he added, are “relatively stable.”