Long Beach's taller bulkheads upset residents

Dozens of Long Beach homeowners are trading water views for seawall views, and some are not happy about it.

Residents on streets lining canals were aghast in November when the city began erecting bulkheads 3 feet higher than the 40-year-old sea walls they were replacing.

As work progressed on the $1.6-million project to replace deteriorating bulkheads on city property along streets of the Canals neighborhood, more and more residents found they could no longer see the water from the street or the first floors of their homes.

After a flood of complaints, the city decided last month to reduce the height of some of the walls by one foot. But that didn't satisfy everyone - including Doyle Street resident William Negin, who likened the new heavy vinyl sheeting to the Great Wall of China and still insists "it's a monstrosity."

No one denies the seawalls need to be replaced; it's their height that stirs controversy. Officials say the decision to raise the height reflects a slowly rising sea level and updated elevations calculated on a 2009 Federal Emergency Management Agency flood map.

"The tides keep getting higher and higher so it's to prevent flooding," City Manager Charles Theofan said. "In the future, all bulkheads will be of this height. Some people complained that they were too high and they were restricting their views." He said many residents who have replaced their own bulkheads chose "this exact-same elevation."

Public Works Commissioner Kevin Mulligan said the FEMA map puts the flood level at between 9 and 10 feet, so the city originally designed all the bulkheads to be 10 feet high.

But after the walls went up on Doyle Street, the city decided to cut down the sheeting along the canal to 9 feet while leaving the bulkhead at the end of the street by Reynolds Channel at 10 feet. This staggered arrangement will be followed on the seven other streets included in the project, which is to be completed by Memorial Day. Mulligan said the higher bulkheads qualify residents for a 10 percent discount on federal flood insurance.

Doyle Street resident Robert Roslan, who's lived there for about 30 years and has never had flood damage to his house, said, "I'm glad they went down one foot, but even lower would be better. We don't want to take away from the view and prices of our homes.

"We're going to have to give away some view, I understand that," he said. "The way they had it originally, they took away all of our view. Now I can see the top half of the boats and the water from my steps."

Negin, who has lived on Doyle almost 40 years without any flooding, said: "We knew it was going to be higher than the existing bulkhead; we didn't know it was going to be this high. Eight feet would be OK."

But Aaron Janoer, a Doyle Street resident since 1969, said the city did the right thing.

"We are losing a little bit of our view but I realize it's a necessary evil," Janoer said. "For the last few years, when we get bad storms, waves are going over the bulkhead."