Boulder Threat Splits Reluctant Landowners

Landowners on two sides of a cracked rock formation that threatens homes off Camarillo Springs Road disagree about who would be responsible for securing the hillside if experts say it must be stabilized.

Officials in The Springs housing tract and the Camarillo Village Square mobile home park say they do not own the land where a towering boulder rests atop an abandoned rock quarry.

But George Longo, whose family owns land behind the homes, said Tuesday that surveys would confirm that his property line rests just beyond the area where a six-foot-wide crevice was discovered in the rock last month.

Longo declined to elaborate, saying only that property records would bear him out. In previous interviews, Longo did not dispute the residents’ assertions that he owned the land.

At stake is perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars in excavation costs, homeowners said. Boundary markers delineating property lines in the area have mostly disappeared.

Bill Torrence of the Camarillo Springs Common Area Assn.--a homeowners group--said he is certain the crumbling formation lies on Longo’s side of the property line.

“I hope we don’t have to take on George Longo, but if it comes down to Longo or the association, we’ll fight all the way,” Torrence said. “I know it’s not our property.”

Howard Samuelson, president of the homeowner group’s board of directors, said the boundary dispute has simmered for years.

“We haven’t been able to define those (property lines),” he said. “We’re assuming that the common area association property goes (only) up to that steep face of the cliff.” The homeowners already have agreed to pay for a geological study that will begin later this week.

Geolab of Westlake Village, which said it would need 15 to 20 work days to complete the study, expects to charge up to $4,400 for the analysis, Samuelson said. But that figure could rise if the company has to rent a helicopter to finish the survey, he said.

“They think they can access it by climbing up the mountain,” he said.

If Geolab experts determine that costly excavation work is needed to prevent hundreds of tons of rock from spilling onto nearby homes, the association plans to get a lawyer to try to force Longo to secure the hillside, Torrence said.

Residents “didn’t move out here to be kept in a quandary of being scared all the time,” he said.

Torrence also said the association’s insurance carrier already has declined to cover the cost of stabilizing the hillside or any losses sustained by a rockslide.

There are more than 500 homes at the foot of the hill, but a wide parking lot lies between the houses and the quarry site.

Geolab officials said during an initial analysis last week that the scores of motor homes parked in the lot would be more likely than the homes to suffer damage from falling rocks.

“Nobody but a geologist can say how old it is or anything else,” Torrence said. “Only God knows what’s going to happen.” Firefighters discovered the gaping crevice, which opens to about six feet at its top but extends perhaps 100 feet into the hill, while extinguishing a 30-acre blaze late last month.

Torrence, who lives near the hillside, said he has spent much of the past 10 days worrying about the potential rockslide.

“There are so many legal ramifications to this,” he said. “It’s been a real headache for me.”