Taken from an article in the LA Times about City lawsuits and how much they cost the taxpayers.
Rancho Palos Verdes may win the prize for the highest volume of land-use cases and the most bizarre.
The well-heeled coastal city incorporated in 1973 after a group of residents objected to a county master plan that would have allowed greater housing density than they wanted. Since the city's "birth by litigation," city attorney Carol Lynch said, "it's really been one lawsuit after another."
There have been fights with Donald Trump over land-use approvals and ficus trees on the mogul's golf course, a dispute that went to the U.S. Supreme Court over a radio antenna on a resident's house, battles over one of the state's first "view protection" ordinances and fights with homeowners living on an active landslide.
The latest of those involves a house owned by resident Andrea Joannou. In 2005, Joannou bought a dilapidated home on a hillside south of scenic Palos Verdes Drive South, across the road from the gated Portuguese Bend community where she lives.
Despite its shoddy condition, the hillside house had a "to die for" 180-degree view of the Pacific Ocean, and Joannou said she hoped to fix it up and use it as a vacation home or let a relative live there.
But she soon found she couldn't fix it. Although Joannou bought the house, because of the landslide, the property belongs to Rancho Palos Verdes, or so the city says. The city said that over the course of decades, the slow-moving Portuguese Bend Landslide moved the house off its original lot onto land owned by the city's redevelopment agency, a fact that Joannou said she was unaware of when she bought the house.
The city says the house belongs on a lot across the street from its current location, where it was before the landslide began in 1956. That lot is behind someone else's house and has no ocean view.
The dispute has threatened a long-standing gentleman's agreement among neighbors in the Portuguese Bend community, who had operated on the assumption that their property lines move with the landslide instead of remaining in their pre-slide locations — a belief that the city does not always share.
Joannou — joined by a real estate company that had bought the similarly situated house next door — sued the city and everyone else with a possible interest in the land in an attempt to get the neighborhood's property lines redrawn in the houses' current locations. She lost, but has appealed the decision.
Who owns the house?
Who owns the property that the house sits on?
Who owns the dirt that the house sits on?
Who owns the area defined on the subdivision map where the house used to sit?
Is the City correct in their assumptions?
Can you utilize the principles of accretion and avulsion in the situation?
What if the house was moved by an earthquake rather than a slow moving landslide?
> Who owns the house?
> Who owns the property that the house sits on?
> Who owns the dirt that the house sits on?
> Who owns the area defined on the subdivision map where the house used to sit?
> Is the City correct in their assumptions?
> Can you utilize the principles of accretion and avulsion in the situation?
> What if the house was moved by an earthquake rather than a slow moving landslide?
>
Cool problem. It is my recollection from a seminar many years ago that the ownership was left where it originally was. The monuments are not in their original and undisturbed locations.
Let the lawyers argue about the rest.
SAY WHAT?
It would seem to me that the monuments are in their original position on the ground and have not been disturbed. Maybe not in the original geographical position?
Even though this example is extreme, the concept is sure worth discussing as monuments do move with the movement of the earth.
Or do we calculate the geographic coordinates of where the monuments used to be, and then pull them up and reset them at the previous geographic coordinate position?
I sure hope the lady gets a better lawyer who knows something about land law, for her appeal to this ridiculous court decision.
Keith
>> who had operated on the assumption that their property lines move with the landslide instead of remaining in their pre-slide locations — a belief that the city does not always share.
The City is nuts, this matter was well settled by adjudication after the 1964 Anchorage Alaska earthquake.
Mike
Is it possible for us to read about that adjudication?
This same case was posted yesterday under "legal issues", if you want to see some other thoughts on it.
It is hard for me to swallow that someone could legally build a house on a property that they legally own, and then have the house move to another property and be told that they no longer own it. It seems like it is a "slow and imperceptable" movement to me. I wonder how stable it is if it was built on a landslide, though? Should the builder of the house have known?
What is in it for the city to deny someone who bought a house from the builder of the house (or the same chain of title)? They should certainly make allowances for the buyer. (of course the buyer might have gotten it surveyed to begin with. That might have tipped them off that there was something going on.) It would always be better to get these things taken care of at the onslaught. And what about title? Is the title insurer insuring that house and address?
A question might be:
How would her property be surveyed now or at least prior to the court case and the City's involvement?
Would her existing monuments be held where they are in the ground?
That is certainly a valid question. Another is: do coordinates hold over monuments? A sudden landslide is one thing...but how slow was this one, anyway? Did it travel 2 feet in a year? Or did it happen one day, 50 years ago?
A couple of other questions: Who is the city to decide? Should the city be working for the people, and is doing a buyer harm in their best interest? In an extremely obscure case, where a house has moved, shouldn't the City be erring on the side of the citizen?
From the first post:
The city said that over the course of decades, the slow-moving Portuguese Bend Landslide moved the house off its original lot onto land owned by the city's redevelopment agency, a fact that Joannou said she was unaware of when she bought the house.
The city is on the city's side ...... as usual.:-/
The City is comprised of its citizens. City employees don't (or shouldn't) profit or have an incentive to rip off its people for profit. A City not working in the best interest of its citizens, is not working on the "City's side". (I get your sarcasm, and am not really arguing with you....just sayin'.)
Who would have made the decision for the City?
It's all well and good to say the city should be working "for it's citizens", but lets not forget that the person whose land is sliding is not the only "citizen" with an interest here.
There are land owners and home owners on the other side of this movement, as well as people who don't live on that subdivision, but may still have to use the road, utilities, etc.
"The city" should be balancing the interests of all parties involved.
I agree about cities looking out for their interests first. Usually there is an underlying objective if they insist they own something or have authority over something.
They are as good as their city attorney.
You have to go well outside the area to find legal counsel that will actually help your cause.
Monuments do move, no so much around here, yet I've found it possible by locating many monuments on different occasions thru the years. It was never to the extent that a structure moved enough to be on another lot.
With that in mind, I've never called any one of them to be in the wrong location if nature caused the movement.
I found and am reading this report.
An interesting subject since natural events happen so frequently and in more populated ares these days.
what if the ground stretched? it would seem very possible that given the physics of slow landslides that the velocity of the slide will depend on the position on the hillside, the underlying soil composition and likely another hundred variables. if the lower monuments moved 100' and the upper monuments moved 90' would you then increase the dimensions by 10'?
I had to dig out the old notes on the seminar and I could not quickly find the answer. My notes were directed towards the water boundaries and other phenomenon seen in these parts.
Looking at a post below, the landslide may have been caused by human activities, which further clouds the question.
Mike
> Is it possible for us to read about that adjudication?
http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/akstatutes/9/09.45./10./09.45.800.
The point is: monuments, not geodetic coordinates, control parcel boundaries.
I don't see what the problem is...
Sicilian Cowboy,
You are right of course. Good point I was being cynical, and, of course there is a lot more to every story, and working for the "benefit" of the city also means not giving land away, or treating one citizen better than the others. Saving money in the city coffers also benefits the "whole".
(However) I have worked with a number of Cities where there is often one person that is in a position of "power" that will make a lot of good people jump through unjust hoops. I also know that if a road "slid" downhill and out of the right-of-way, many cities wouldn't be quick to jump on the bandwagon to suddenly say that their roadway is out of the right of way. Nor would a lot of them chase after people who are losing land to give them fair market value for their encroaching road. It just p's me off when I see non surveyor public officials flippantly claiming as to property information without all the facts (kind of like what I just did 😉
I don't know the specifics of this case and was certainly speaking based on assumptions and without full knowledge. I see there are others here who are posting links to case law, etc.
(I see ropestrecher's post below where it shows the road fully outside of its right of way limit...and again I don't know how much of that is the GIS and how much of that is actual location).
>
> (I see ropestrecher's post below where it shows the road fully outside of its right of way limit...and again I don't know how much of that is the GIS and how much of that is actual location).
I don't know the answer to that one either. I do know that driving through that area, it is readily apparent that there is MAJOR shifting in the ground. I'd like to have the contract to supply the asphalt for road repairs. My wife is from the area, her mom lived there in the 50's when the blasting for the highway started this mess (according to her mom.) We get through there about once a year. It's not uncommon to drive on a fairly fresh patch of asphalt spanning lateral and vertical shifts of feet in the road.
