THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 5, 1996 TAG: 9607050128
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 78 lines
The saga of Sandbridge homeowners squaring off with the city and the builder of their bulkheads is moving toward settlement, the parties in the dispute say.
A group of 22 homeowners is weighing an offer from Waterfront Marine Construction, which built the bulkheads eight years ago. Six were toppled by northeasters in 1991 and 1994. The others are not considered structurally sound.
Terms of the offer were not revealed, but the homeowners apparently like what they have seen.
Charles E. Snyder, an architectural administrator who acts as spokesman for the property owners, said he has been circulating the offer to see if there is a consensus. About half have responded, he said, and among those, ``There seems to be a positive attitude and an interest in a resolution.''
``Hopefully, we'll get a resolution,'' said J. Randolph Sutton, president of Waterfront Marine.
That is good news for the city because its threat to yank out the bulkheads and bill the property owners was effectively thwarted by court order. A Circuit Court judge ruled that a local ordinance permitting the city to take action was unconstitutional.
The city contends that the leaning bulkheads are dangerous, that they could collapse on sunbathers or that tides would wash swimmers against rusted bolts and jagged edges.
Assistant City Attorney Richard J. Beaver said the City Council could decide to appeal the decision to the Virginia Supreme Court, a time-consuming process, or amend the ordinance to cure its constitutional problems.
In the meantime, the city is not about to unleash bulldozers on the faulty bulkheads.
``We're not going to do a thing until the legal ramifications are resolved,'' said Carl A. Thoren, beach management engineer for the city's Public Works Department.
Bulkheads are the last line of defense for about 70 percent of Sandbridge oceanfront homeowners as the ocean eats away at the beach. There is no longer any beach in front of many bulkheads, even at low tide.
Of the 243 oceanfront properties at Sandbridge, 170 have bulkheads. Forty-eight bulkheads have been wrecked by storms.
Most have been repaired or will be. Six that have not been repaired are among the 22 at the center of the dispute.
The property owners' legal squabble goes back to 1989, when questions were first raised about the soundness of the bulkheads. Since then, the fight has wound its way through arbitration and the court system. Meanwhile, the bulkheads have taken a beating from the weather.
A seventh damaged bulkhead built by the same contractor is farther south. That property owner was successful in the legal challenge to declare the city's ordinance unconstitutional after a previous attempt by some of the other 22 property owners failed.
Sutton declined to discuss details of the offer.
But Helen McDonald, one of the six owners with damaged bulkheads, said she would accept nothing less than having the contractor pay the full cost of removing and replacing them.
Speaking of Sutton, she said, ``He's very welcome to come here and build what I bought.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
THE DISPUTE
A legal tangle ensued after questions were raised in 1989 about
the structural soundness of 22 oceanfront bulkheads built by the
same contractor.
The property owners sued the construction company. In 1991,
arbitrators ordered the bulkheads fixed, but the work was never
done. Six of the bulkheads were ruined in a storm a few months
later.
The homeowners sued again, won $491,795 in arbitration, but lost
it on appeal to the state Supreme Court in April.
The city says the teetering remains are hazardous to swimmers and
strollers. Officials threatened to bulldoze the damaged seawalls and
charge the homeowners if something wasn't done. The City Council
even passed an ordinance that would allow it to do that. But a court
said the ordinance was unconstitutional.
Now, a compromise is in the works, although no one is revealing
the details just yet. by CNB