Banning Ranch, neighbors working to settle lawsuit
Newport Banning Ranch and an adjacent Costa Mesa homeowners association are working toward a settlement agreement that could end a two-year old lawsuit between the two neighbors over damage to a shared wall.
However, some homeowners in the California Seabreeze neighborhood, which sits in Costa Mesa’s Westside just north of the Banning Ranch site, are concerned that they might be on the hook for the cost of the repairs.
In 2013, the California Seabreeze Community Assn. filed a lawsuit against Newport Banning Ranch LLC, as well as several adjacent business owners including OCR Capital Corp., Olen Properties and AA Storage, who the association alleges is responsible for damaging their retaining Hilfiker wall, which separates the western boundary of the housing track from the Banning Ranch property.
The Hilfiker wall, built in the 1980s, is a stabilizing earth wall reinforced with welded-steel wire mesh and concrete and constructed to look like blocks that sit on top of one another.
Newport Banning Ranch LLC is amending a proposal, which is likely to go before the California Coastal Commission next year, to develop homes, a boutique hotel, a retail center, a hostel and several parks on 95 acres of the 401-acre parcel. Newport Banning Ranch LLC has said the project will make the site, which for decades has been home to oil drilling operations and otherwise shielded from public access, open for the public to enjoy.
The dispute centers on damage to the wall that the association believes was caused after a drainage ditch on the Banning Ranch property collapsed in 2010 allowing water to flow into the wall.
“The unrestrained runoff water rushed against the slope and caused the supporting soil under a portion of the Hilfiker Wall to experience a significant amount of erosion that significantly damaged [the wall],” court documents state.
The association alleges that the wall will continue to be damaged if the water runoff isn’t abated, they say. In response, the association is asking Newport Banning Ranch LLC to install a new drainage ditch, replace wall buttresses and compact the eroding soil near the wall. It is unclear how much the repairs will cost.
George Ross, the property manager for the California Seabreeze Assn., confirmed that the two groups were working on a settlement, but declined to comment further. Representatives for Newport Banning Ranch LLC could not be reached for comment.
Teresa Barnwell, who lives in the neighborhood, said the association has asked homeowners to consider approving a bank loan of $500,000 to fund the repairs on the wall. With El Niño approaching and heavy rains predicted, Barnwell said some in the neighborhood feel there’s no choice but to fund the repairs.
“The board believes we must go ahead and make the repairs due to the predicted El Niño whether the lawsuit is settled or not,” she wrote in an email. “Our neighborhood is trying to avoid the possibility of heavy rains making this situation worse.”
