Three houses on Newport Beach bluff yellow-tagged after early morning landslide
Three houses on Newport Beach’s Galaxy Drive were yellow-tagged after a landslide was reported to city officials early Thursday morning.
The slide appeared to have happened at around 4 a.m. in Newport Beach, according to officials. City spokesman John Pope said property owners had just contacted the city on Wednesday with concerns about the stability of the bluff and stated their intent to submit forms to bolster their property prior to Thursday morning’s slide.
Pope said much of the backyard at 1466 Galaxy Drive was lost, but the property and the two properties adjacent remained intact.
One of the notices posted to an adjacent property indicated the houses had been yellow-tagged because of what city inspectors called a “severe rear yard bluff failure.” Because of the exposure of a gas line and authorities’ efforts to observe the bluff for any further damage, the properties have been marked for no occupancy, though residents are allowed to retrieve their things.
“At 4 a.m. this morning, the outside wall noise alerted me,” said Steven Peisner, who lives at 1472 Galaxy Drive. “I heard the clank of flower pots all coming down, which is why I came outside.”
Peisner said the majority of his concrete and brick patio sank 10 feet down the hill sometime during the early morning and stopped before falling into the bay against trees that stood in its path. The backyard swimming pool at his property was also damaged — the pool equipment was ripped from its foundation and the pool was empty. While the damage to his house, if any, was minimal, the state of the backyard led to a yellow tag.
Pope said the city is in contact with both the state and county because the homes abut the Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve, which falls under the state’s jurisdiction.
He confirmed the city is collaborating with the property owners to expedite efforts to stabilize their homes.
This is not the first time a slide has happened in Newport Beach or even on Galaxy Drive. In March of last year, a different property at 1930 Galaxy Drive, not far from the addresses affected Thursday, was red-tagged after a huge portion of the home’s backyard collapsed due to a slide caused by heavy rain. That home was demolished later that month.
Councilman Erik Weigand, who represents the district where the slides have occurred, said he was at the scene Thursday morning and observed the damage from one of the neighbors’ backyards. It appeared the hillside had largely fallen into the Back Bay.
Weigand noted he and Assemblywoman Diane Dixon recently spoke about what the state could do to help the Galaxy Drive homes impacted last year but that conversation tapered off as they were “hitting a lot of roadblocks.”
“I’m definitely concerned about everyone’s homes,” Weigand said. “We’ve had a tremendous amount of water in the last two years. It’s extremely saturated. When I was standing there [in a neighbor’s backyard], I could see the hillside crumbling down. I may not have seen a major slide, but there were still rocks. It’s still active, and it will still be active for some time based on the existing properties experiencing [this same situation] last year,” said Weigand. “The incident from last year was in part because [the houses] were built on fill material.”
Dover Shores and the surrounding acreages that skirt the bay were developed by the Irvine Co. in the 1960s for residential use and have long battled the elements, with fortifications such as caissons, watertight retaining structures, drilled into the hillsides.
One neighbor, who declined to give her name but lives across the street from the impacted homes, told a reporter Thursday she knew one of the yellow-tagged properties had been fortified with caissons, and she was surprised to learn the house was not considered safe for occupancy.
“When the land here was developed back in the day, the land was smaller on some of these parcels so fill was added to make them equal with other properties. On this particular property, I don’t know if that is the cause or if it could be something else. We’ll have to hear from geologists, but it’s concerning,” Weigand said. “As long as we continue to receive these storms, it’s a double-edged sword. We need water in this state, but — the reality is that there’s a lot of saturation all around. It’s not just this street or this hillside but Orange County, and all of Southern California.
“This is not a problem unique to just this area or homes on the cliffsides. We’re keeping an eye on this and making sure that other properties are, hopefully, not in the same situation, but you know we won’t know until things like this happen.”
Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley issued a statement Wednesday afternoon saying she had sent her staff out to provide the affected homeowners with information related to property tax relief and to offer resources that could assist them while they are displaced from their residences.
“We are monitoring the situation and in coordination with the city of Newport Beach, state Assemblywoman Diane Dixon, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Office of the Governor,” Foley stated.
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.
