Mayor calls for penalties

Spurred by flattened sand dune, Newport leader wants city to address punishing future offenders. The California Coastal Commission plans to penalize five West Newport property owners for allegedly removing a sand dune, but in the future the city of Newport Beach could be meting out punishment for environmental crimes on its shores.

Newport Beach Mayor John Heffernan wants the City Council to look at creating penalties for messing with coastal resources and including them in the local coastal plan the city is now writing.

Commission officials announced Monday that they want five people who own homes in the 7300 block of West Ocean Front to pay for restoring a 150-foot length of sand dunes that were flattened around April 17.

Efforts to reach the residents at their homes were unsuccessful.

Newport Beach police investigating the incident found the homeowners allegedly paid $2,000 to an employee of a contractor on the Santa Ana River dredging project to smooth out the dunes, which were between Sonora and Olive streets.

There are two main reasons the dune destruction is a big deal, Newport Beach Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff said.

For one thing, coastal sand dunes are a habitat for rare and endangered birds, including the California least tern, which is known to breed nearby, and the western snowy plover, he said.

Also, he said, “Those dunes are all on public property, so someone went ahead and did work on public property without a permit.”

The dunes in this case were on city property, so the Coastal Commission told city officials they’d better find out what happened or they might have to replace the dunes themselves. Dune restoration projects can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the commission.

With ocean views commanding premium home prices, there’s plenty of incentive for this type of crime, but right now the city has no penalties. Heffernan wants to change that, particularly since the city will be assuming more enforcement responsibilities once its local coastal plan is approved.

“It’s natural that if our police did the investigating that they’d be reporting to us or the district attorney rather than the Coastal Commission,” Heffernan said.

For now, the Orange County District Attorney’s office does not plan to file any criminal charges against the property owners who allegedly paid for the destruction of the dune, Deputy Dist. Atty. Steve Yonemura said.

“The option is still open to us, but it might be resolved with that the Coastal Commission decides to do with it,” he said.

The property owners in this case will have to face the commission, which could discuss the issue at a January meeting.

Heffernan hopes the council will agree to create its own ordinance to protect resources such as dunes and palm trees because the $2,000 spent to remove the dunes was likely a pittance compared with the boost a better ocean view would give property values.

“It’s too valuable of an asset and there’s too much monetary payback for doing these sorts of things,” Heffernan said.

“A better view in Newport Beach is often a six-figure addition to value.”