This is Tramonto Drive and the top of the landslide that a developer wants to build on.
The Tramonto landslide is active, and residents want it fixed before the city allows a developer to build four large homes on it. Councilmember Traci Park held a Zoom meeting with Castellammare residents on October 1 to explore next steps.
L.A. City Planning has approved the project and it now goes to the PLUM (Planning and Land Use Management) Committee. The city feels that doing “anything” for the slide is better than doing nothing. Only about a third to a half of the slide would be remediated with the project.
“This project predates me several years,” Park said. “I’m looking for you guys to direct me.”
The houses would be built on part of the slide, hoping to help stabilize it.
The meeting took a dramatic turn when a Caltrans official, Joon Kang, warned that “we may take legal action against the city and developers. If rains come again, the slide may close PCH.”
A neighbor had raised concerns before the project, given the houses sliding off the hills on Rancho Palos Verdes. “I’ve lived here 50 years. When they only remediate part of the upper slide, it may trigger the slide further. This has to be analyzed more carefully.”
Kang, Caltrans District 7, Assistant Division Chief of Program/Project management, agreed with the resident.
“We are concerned about this development,” Kang said and pointed out that Caltrans is responsible for the lower portion of the slide. “Whatever you do on the top, will impact the lower hill.
“We had to realign PCH after the winter rains,” Kang said. In February, dirt from the slide went onto a lane of the northbound PCH, causing this major artery to close. People from Topanga, Malibu or San Fernando Valley could not access Los Angeles on the coastal road.
Caltrans public information officer Marc Bischoff wrote then the agency had waited for weeks for the slide to dry out, but unlike the past, when the dirt from the slide was removed, “Geotechnical Division has determined the unstable nature of the slide prevents Caltrans from removing the debris from the right lane of the highway near the toe of the slide and that repairs still need to start from the top of the slide, which is outside of our jurisdiction and right of way.”
Bischoff said, “This most recent [Tramonto] slide originated outside of state/Caltrans right of way, although it continues to encroach onto Caltrans right of way.
“A joint study was done in 2010 by Caltrans and the City of Los Angeles,” Bischoff said. “The study documented the history of the slide and recommended that long-term repairs start from the top of the slide.” (The cost then to repair it was listed at $25 million.)
Kang said at the October 1 meeting, “We need to have a better understanding of this slide. Caltrans is not looking at different portions of the slide, but at the slide as a whole.”
Park agreed that “some additional environmental information is needed.”
Earlier, Park had submitted a request to the City Budget committee to fund more research on Tramonto. “The motion is now pending in the budget committee,” Park said. “I’m going to lobby to get this assessment done.”
Park was not optimistic because the city is operating on a “bare bones budget” and a half billion-dollar deficit.
One resident pointed out that PCH should have priority because it is not a local street but a major thoroughfare.
Another resident pointed out that the City “should not only be looking at today’s budget, but also future liability.”
One lane of PCH was closed in February below the Tramonto landslide area between Sunset Boulevard and Porto Marina because of the toe of the slide. Eventually, PCH was moved closer to the ocean in order to construct two north-bound lanes.
Photo: Murray Levy
In January, 1969, this same slide covered all of the Coast highway. In fact people had to walk down to the sand and then climb back up hill to PCH and walk or ride home. Several months passed before the Highway was opened again. This is an active slide zone. Homes should not be built there.
How could anyone in their right mind think houses should be built there?
Thank God for Caltrans. Traci Park continues to support the developers in spite of all the evidence and resistance the community of Castellammare has provided. And she is doing this at Paseo Miramar and Mt. Holyoke as well. We have met with her and shown her why her staff is dead wrong in assuming that doing something is better than doing nothing here. She and her team have been corrupted by these developers who care nothing about the impact on residents. She has become their advocate! No one mentioned that the do not sell landslide insurance. Can you imagine buying a multi-million dollar home in the center of an active landslide without landside insurance.