Two facts are facing neighbors in Long Beach’s Naples island: Its 86 year old seawall needs $125 million in repairs, and the city doesn’t have the money to do it now.
“There is a whole lot of wall that is starting to come down,” said Michael O’Toole, who lives on the island and runs a gondola business along the canal. “Underneath it is where you can stick your hand right through it.”
Visible cracks and chunks of concrete have fallen off the wall that was built after the 1933 Long Beach quake.
It protects multi-million-dollar homes in the man-made canal that loops around the island.
Get top local stories in Southern California delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC LA's News Headlines newsletter.
“This was a wall that was built to last 60 years and we are (close to) 90,” said O”Toole.
The city of Long Beach has been repairing the seawall since 2012 with oil revenue funds, but with those funds now drying up the repairs have halted the project until the city can find more money.
Long Beach’s public works department issued a report on the seawall, the damage left to repair and options to pay for it.
One of those options is to have neighbors foot the bill with a 30-year bond paid back by all Naples residents or only those living along the seawalls.
It could cost residents $5,100 per property annually if the entire neighborhood is included. If it’s just the residents living on the seawall, that price tag could be $48,000 per property.
“It’s not really the island’s responsibility to do it,” said O’Toole. “It’s the city’s (responsibility) and they understand that.”
O’Toole said the Long Beach city manager met with neighbors Monday night and told them it’s highly unlikely residents would be saddled with those costs.
That option would require a two-thirds approval of residents.
The city told O’toole they see the repairs as infrastructure improvement, “just like fixing sidewalks and roads in any neighborhood,” said O’Toole.
The city report indicated the wall was in “fair condition,” but it is prone to flooding and at risk of collapse in the event of a “major near-source earthquake.”
“It’s a serious problem if these walls start following apart and homes start getting flooded. You don’t want that happening in your city,” said O’Toole.
