City won’t sell parkland

June Casagrande

Seven homeowners whose yards overstep property lines will not be able

to buy pieces of city parkland, council members agreed Tuesday. But

the city could work out a deal to lease the land to them, to continue

to let them use it for free or even to kick them out and make the

area available to the public.

In their study session on Tuesday, City Council members considered

the perplexing problem about what to do about homes they say encroach

onto neighboring parkland. But to suggest that the homeowners

overstepped their bounds is an oversimplification, council members

agree.

In 1979, the city built a fence between Irvine Terrace Park and

the backyards of six Malabar Drive homes to protect the homeowners

from transients and park users who came too close to the homes and

also to protect the city from liability of allowing people to stray

into the wooded, sloping area. The city-installed fence is not along

the property line but on the bottom of the slope, effectively adding

anywhere from 30 to 80 feet to residents’ backyards.

Residents have landscaped part of these areas as their own

backyards, in some cases building small structures on them.

Not far away, at the tiny Kings Road Park overlooking Coast

Highway and the bay, a family bought a home last year next door to a

1,000-square-foot patch of sloping parkland that was already fenced

in and maintained as part of the backyard.

“I think these are areas where we need to consider an encroachment

permit but definitely not a sale,” Councilman Don Webb said.

Councilman John Heffernan, who guessed the land could be worth

$200 to $300 a square foot, said that the city should consider making

the homeowners pay and using the money develop or improve other parks

in the city.

Environmentalist Jan Vandersloot said the land should be opened

back up to the park users.

“I think it has greater value to the public than what is being

portrayed,” Vandersloot said. “That area could be a made into a

riparian habitat.”

But several residents who say they recall transients and

troublemakers congregating on the wooded slope disagreed.

Council members agreed to put the matter on a future council

agenda for a vote, perhaps next month, to weigh all their options.

But because three council members said they would support giving

permits to the homeowners, probably in exchange for a fee, future

council talks could head in that direction.

“It’s not great when you buy a property then see yourself in the

newspaper as someone who encroached on the land,” said Mark Murray, a

Malabar Drive homeowner.