NEWPORT BEACH : Removal of Encroachments Ordered

Garden walls and planters that extend onto public property at the ends of some west Newport Bay-area streets will have to be removed, the city has declared.

At points where streets dead-end at the bay, the space between the edge of the pavement and the water is public property.

But at dozens of street ends, public works director Don Webb said, owners of adjacent houses have closed off the beachfront with fences or walls, then used the space for lawns or gardens.

Though the property appears to be private, Webb said, it is not.

Property owners, he said, have been ordered to remove walls and other structures that block public access or would prevent the city from extending the bay-front sidewalk if it chooses to do so.