CORONA DEL MAR TODAY

China Cove House Partly Collapses as Ocean Seeps Under Foundation

A China Cove home undergoing major remodeling has been red-tagged as crews try to stabilize it after ocean water seeped under a seawall and buckled its foundation earlier this week.

“My parents heard a huge crash that sounded like a cannon blast,” said homeowner Harley Broviak, who owns the property in the 2700 block of Cove Street. “It was my foundation collapsing.” Broviak discovered the collapse Thursday morning while walking and noticing the home’s front door hanging open; he said the foundation had collapsed eight feet. He currently is remodeling the home, which he bought two years ago, and was not present when the collapse occurred.

City crews arrived to fill the hole with slurry and to prop up the home with boards; they also stapled a red emergency safety notice on the home, warning that the home was unsafe to enter.

Broviak believes the collapse and resulting three-foot flood was because the city has failed for years to add sand to the beach at China Cove, even after dredging at the nearby Channel Reef marina. “If the sand had been maintained at the proper level, this wouldn’t have happened. You caused a catastrophic event at my house, and this will domino (to other nearby homes). I’ve worked hard for 25 years to buy this property. This is the American dream — going up in smoke.”

Newport Beach Director of Public Works Steve Badum said the city was investigating the situation, but that it appeared to be the homeowner’s responsibility because a joint failure in the bulkhead wall is what caused the erosion under the foundation, and that wall is the property owner’s responsibility, not the city’s.

“The bulkhead wall was most likely constructed by the original home builder and therefore is a private owned bulkhead wall,” Badum said in an email. He added that Newport Beach owns bulkhead walls typically when they are adjacent to public facilities, such as around Balboa Island. “The city is currently researching the records to confirm this, but we are pretty sure that the property owner owns this wall and is responsible for its maintenance,” he said.

The Cove Street home collapse probably was the result sand moving through the joint failure with the tide. “This most likely occurred over a long period of time creating a void under the house until it was large enough to fail,” Badum said.

However, neighbors said they have been worried about sand levels at China Cove for years, and that city officials have failed to replace sand in spite of their pleas.

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Warren James has lived on a beachfront home there for 28 years and said he’s seen the sand levels drop five feet in that time. (He said you used to have to crawl to get under his home; now you can stand on the stand right underneath it.) “For years, I’ve been pounding on the table to the city to put sand here,” he said on Friday. “When they dredged 7,500 cubic yards from Channel Reef, I went down and jumped up and down, asking them to put it here.”

He said he’s written letters to City Council and other city officials. ” ‘Hey!’” he said the letters say, ” ‘where’s our sand?’ But we don’t get it. It’s always, ‘Oh, it’s winter,’ or ‘There’s eelgrass…’ Then they took 750 truckloads of sand out, through China Cove. As our beach is bleeding.”

City Councilwoman Nancy Gardner stopped by to look at the damage on Friday but had not had a chance to discuss the situation with public works or other officials. Meanwhile, city officials confirmed that the home had not been issued proper permits for the remodeling project, and construction was halted in March. The project’s new permit application had been plan-checked once and was waiting for corrections to be brought back before new permits were issued, a city employee said.

Corona del Mar Today will continue to cover this story and update it as details become available. Last two photos courtesy of the homeowner.