XPost: alt.los-angeles, talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   XPost: alt.home.repair, sci.geo.geology   
   From: democrat-insurrection@mail.house.gov   
      
   https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/rancho-palos-verdes-landslide-   
   homes-history-explainer-backstory   
      
   Rancho Palos Verdes life is mostly idyllic and insular. Clifftop ocean   
   views, scenic hiking trails and a thriving equine community mean residents   
   rarely have to go “down the hill.”   
      
   But in recent years, multi-million-dollar homes perched atop oceanside   
   bluffs in the Portuguese Bend area have started to succumb to geological   
   forces that — despite millions of dollars and years of efforts — cannot be   
   stopped.   
      
   In fact, those forces were accelerated by heavy rains in 2023 and 2024,   
   pulling apart structures, cutting gas and power lines and severing roads.   
   NASA imagery shows that land was sliding at a rate of 4 inches a week   
   during a four-week period last year.   
      
   Portuguese Bend is clearly on borrowed time.   
      
   But people are adaptable, especially when there’s this much to lose.   
   Residents have set up solar panels and generators. The iconic Wayfarers   
   Chapel was meticulously disassembled so it can be moved to more stable   
   ground. The city has increased efforts to pump groundwater away from the   
   slide zone and will use more than $40 million in federal disaster funds to   
   buy properties.   
      
   So how did this slow-moving disaster get to this point? Who’s responsible?   
   And where does Rancho Palos Verdes go from here?   
      
   What set off the movement   
   According to research from Cal State Dominguez Hills, the Portuguese Bend   
   landslide has been moving for more than 250,000 years. But the more   
   aggressive movement started after World War II, when the peninsula   
   experienced a housing boom.   
      
   “Sliding increased as ground water levels rose, the latter due to   
   homeowner irrigation, and installation of pools and septic tanks,” Brendan   
   McNulty, the professor behind the research paper, wrote. “Almost all of   
   these houses have since been destroyed by landslide activity.”   
      
   McNulty has since retired and is not available for interviews, a   
   spokesperson for the university told LAist.   
      
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   The Portuguese Bend area seen from the air in 1955 before many houses were   
   built.   
   (Howard D. Kelly /Kelly-Holiday Mid-Century Aerial Collection / Los   
   Angeles Public Library)   
   Frank Vanderlip, a banker based in New York, purchased the peninsula in   
   1913 with a vision of turning it into an artists colony, said Palos Verdes   
   Historical Society President Dana Graham. But the Great Depression   
   derailed those plans. Japanese American farmers were forcibly moved off   
   the peninsula when President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066   
   incarcerated thousands of Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans. When   
   service members began returning from World War II, the peninsula became an   
   attractive option since Vanderlip envisioned more than 50% of the area as   
   parkland.   
      
   At the time, Graham said, the roads were mostly dirt and to build a home   
   on the peninsula, you had to pave your own.   
      
   But in 1956, Graham said, the fragile geology keeping the bluffs   
   relatively intact took a hit when L.A. County expanded Crenshaw Boulevard.   
      
   “ The theory was that the blasting and the digging and the movement of   
   dirt and all that had disturbed an ancient slide that had been at   
   equilibrium,” Graham said.   
      
   According to historical documents posted by the city of Rancho Palos   
   Verdes, land moved roughly 22 feet from September 1956 to April 1957.   
      
   What happened next   
   In a report to city officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,   
   geologists said a particularly wet winter in 1978 accelerated land   
   movement, at one point up to 40 feet a year in the early 1980s. The city   
   was later able to reduce that movement to 1 foot a year by installing   
   dewatering wells, which pump water out of the ground, but the bluffs never   
   recovered.   
      
   In the geologists’ report, they said that since the landslide was   
   reactivated in the 1950s more than 5.8 million cubic yards of sediment —   
   or enough to fill over 200,000 football fields — had been deposited in the   
   ocean since the land started moving in the 1950s.   
      
   Residents sue the city to develop land   
   When the land movement started accelerating in 1978, city officials banned   
   new construction in the Portuguese Bend area, saying they had to “conduct   
   extensive geological studies to determine the stability of the land.” For   
   years, the development moratorium held, until 15 property owners sued the   
   city in 2002, arguing that development had become too restrictive over the   
   years.   
      
   The city’s position, city manager Ara Mihranian told LAist, was to allow   
   improvements on homes built prior to the city’s incorporation.   
      
   A trial followed, and the judge ruled in favor of the city, claiming the   
   development moratorium was justified. But the property owners won on   
   appeal, with the ruling stating that the moratorium was an   
   “unconstitutional taking of property” and the city had to either allow the   
   plaintiffs to build on their vacant lots or buy them at fair market value.   
   This paved the way for the development now being slowly crippled and   
   rendered uninhabitable for the landslide movement   
      
   Mihranian said three of the homes built as a result of the court ruling   
   are now red tagged.   
      
   Where things stand today   
   Today, unstable land movement has left hundreds of residents without power   
   or gas after above average rainfall over the last two winters accelerated   
   movement in the landslide complex rendered dozens of homes unliveable,   
   according to officials. At one point last year, land was moving up to 1   
   foot a week in some areas. That has since slowed with around-the-clock   
   dewatering wells, but experts say it can’t be totally stopped.   
      
   NASA’s UAVSAR airborne radar instrument captured data in fall 2024 showing   
   the motion of landslides on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Darker red   
   indicates faster motion.   
   (NASA Earth Observatory)   
   Which leads to the current conundrum.   
      
   Mihranian told LAist that the long term plan is for the city to look at   
   opportunities through FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant program to buy back   
   homes in the landslide complex.   
      
   As property owners wait for funding for the buyouts, others are trying the   
   real estate market. On Zillow, a home on Vanderlip Drive is listed for   
   more than $2 million with a note that states: “The home is offered for a   
   fraction of its pre-movement value...and will offer a buyer a unique blend   
   of elegance, comfort and breathtaking beauty, making it a true treasure to   
   be loved by the next family lucky enough to call it home.”   
      
      
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