By Lou Ponsi, Special to the Independent
The residents living in the blufftop homes above Victoria Beach have their stairway back, with much of the historical integrity of the century-old stairs intact.
Lined on either side by stones of various shapes and sizes and unique looking walls, the stairway, which connects Victoria Drive to Victoria Beach, was closed for 10 months to allow the city to replace a sewer lift station along with the 100-year old pipes buried underneath the stairs.
During the closure, residents and visitors could only access the beach via Dumond Drive, situated a bit south of the Victoria Beach stairway.
“The fact that the stairs are open makes it a lot easier for everyone to access the beach,” said Victoria Drive resident David Forsyth, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1985 and regularly uses the stairs. “For all the people who live all the way up Victoria, it’s a much more direct path to the sand than walking all the way around the corner and all the way down.”
And when the stairs opened back up on July 22, many residents were grateful to see that the stairway appeared almost identical to the way it looked before construction began.
“None of us saw what they were doing,” Forsyth said. “Where they actually did the work was not visible from the bottom or the top. We had no idea until they opened it. Bit by bit I started [to] find out what they had done and what care they had taken and I was just blown away.”
The $1.68 million project involved total reconstruction of the sewer lift station beneath the stairway, which included replacement of the lift station structure, mechanical equipment, instrumentation and electrical gear, Hannah Johnson, a project manager with the Water Quality Department, said in an email.
The lift station serves the Victoria Beach neighborhood, Johnson said, collecting and transporting about 45,000 gallons of wastewater to the treatment plant daily. The station was over 80 years old before the reconstruction.
Upgrades also included installation of a new urban water diversion unit to collect dry weather urban drainage from the neighborhood and send it to the wastewater treatment plant for treatment, Johnson said.
The stairs and planter areas of the middle section of the walkway above the lift station were replaced and a new decorative wood housing for all of the station’s new electrical gear was installed.
And yes, preserving historical elements of the stairway was indeed a priority, Johnson said.
“Green Building Corporation, the contractor, did a lot of work to shore and to preserve the rock walls during the major re-construction of the lift station,” Johnson said. “They also took a lot of time and care to blend new rock walls with the old so the final result looked like it was all original. Preservation of the rock walls was definitely a priority for the city and we had a great contractor to make that possible.”
Eric Kirkland, 66, is among five generations of his family to live on Sunset Terrace, where his great grandparents built a house in 1906.
While nobody seems to know for sure, Kirkland estimates the stairway to the beach may have been constructed sometime between the mid-1920s and early 1930s by area residents who wanted an easy pathway to the beach.
When he discovered part of the stairway was going to be dug up as part of the lift station project, Kirkland asked the supervisor if workers could set aside some rocks for him.
The multi-colored indigenous rocks, which fascinated Kirkland as a child, are now in his front yard.
“I’ve used them my whole life,” Kirkland said of the stairs. “So have my kids. My great grandparents, grandparents and parents likely walked by those stairs. That pathway has been an important part of our lives.”
What’s not in this pollyanna, warm and fuzzy HOORAH, Mission Accomplished article, are several facts that I’d have those who DON’T live down here as I do on lower Victoria Drive need to know:
Many of us had been jabbing the City for over a decade to replace/repair this sewer station.
(1) The eye-watering and gut wrenching stench, the sewage odors have been horrific during my 15 years in this zone—Maybe you remember all of Marsha Bianchi’s pointed LTE, CC City Council and WQ Dept.?
Prominent odors from Rocklewdge down through PCH in front of RUBY’S DINER, I filed endless complaints with Cal EPA (SD Regional Board) to augment her efforts.
(2) They posted notices alleging a just post-Labor Day launch, done before Memorial Day window? I’ve got copy of the notice right here on my desk.
It was a relatively mild winter, Lagunans, yet the vendor ran ≈25% over the allotted, vowed timeline. David Forsyth, who lives in upper not lower Vic, must be delusional to thank them for that because we went through both Memorial Day & 4th of July tourist hordes without the historical drop-off and pick-up points. Of course not, he lives high up on Solana Way.
(3) The other, major drop off/pick-up is at Dumond & Victoria, where it’s wide and no view restrictions. A humungous cargo container for the project vendors was unceremoniously, and without specific notice to my landlord or neighbors, staged contemporaneously with the stair closure just below my rental on Victoria, right at the mouth of the underpass,. It not only became a choke point for traffic, an eyesore but led to lower Vic homeowners to complain to the City. A cascade or domino effect
Which led to the Parking & Traffic Circulation Committee ratifying the elimination of 3 previously unrestricted parking spaces up on PCH. They were turned into 24 hour/day 10 Minute Loading zones. Which, by my daily observations, morning, mid-day and late afternoon, were never used. I wrote a study ( I’m an enviro-analyst) myself but was ignored by the City. I suggested at least let the sign and enforcement read 9am—6pm. Nope.
I suggested it be a pilot/temporary project, as soon as the 2 access/egress, drop-off/pick up traditionally used were available, people would go back to their habits. Which after removal of the cargo container on Wednesday, they have.
No one’s asking the right questions or holding our City accountable: Did it also go 25% over budget as it did hold residents hostage, especially past contingency budgeting? Who’s minding the store up on PCH? I never saw Code Enforcement.
People didn’t use those white, 10 Minute zones, why didn’t the City Committee at least agree to monitor them, and if people (being lazy or just plain overloaded) aren’t going to schlepp their junk up and down my alley, McCauley, Sunset or Victoria, where’s the contingency plan?
The City affixed a permanent arterial tourniquet over a temporary venial scratch. 3 less unlimited spaces for residents without off-street parking, 3 less for Dizz’s As Is and/or The Drake thus affecting commerce, 3 less for the public.
Oh, let me guess: Next they’ll put meters up, impose a Neighborhood Permit Program, that ALWAYS solves everything.
You can always rely upon the mediocre and myopic: They never let you down.