The property, located at 6965 Hammond Ave. in Nice and owned by Sacramento developer Dominic Affinito, will be abated at the county's direction unless Affinito does the work himself within seven days.
Affinito has proposed a large development at the site, and had grading work done there a few years ago, with a very steep cut made into a hillside close to the property line, according to county officials.
Since October of 2006, the county's Community Development Department had been telling Affinito of the need to finalize his grading permit and get engineered plans for a retaining wall needed at the site.
A memo submitted to the board from a geologist hired by Affinito said that the slope needed to be rounded off and the site observed annually until a retaining wall is constructed.
Supervisor Rob Brown said those proposals implied that it was going to be several years before the wall was built. "That's not really acceptable."
With the housing market down, Affinito said he can't develop the site now. He estimated it will be a year or two before the market recovers.
However, Affinito insisted that the cut is stable, and annual checks of it should suffice.
Brown asked how close the cut was to the neighbor's property line. Affinito said it was 3 to 6 feet.
Community Development Director Rick Coel said that the planning requirements call for an 8-foot setback in this case.
Affinito said the cut has been through two winters with no erosion problems.
"We put an awful lot of money into that property, hoping to develop it," he said.
Coel said his staff was concerned that the situation doesn't meet grading requirements, and that the slope needed to be taken to a less severe angle. "We've had continuous complaints from the property owner upslope," he said.
Supervisor Jeff Smith said if the cut hadn't been made, no issues would have arisen. "Once you made the cut it has to be done to county standards," he told Affinito.
Smith said the wall needed to be built or the slope fixed. "It seems like we covered all of this last year."
Affinito said the county wasn't taking the advice from his geologist, who accompanied him to the meeting and who, according to Affinito, had the expertise to assess the slope.
He said the grading requirements weren't spelled out in the permit; Coel replied that it's contained in the grading ordinance.
Looking at a picture of the cut, Brown asked where the property line was. He disputed Affinito's assertion that the cut was 3 to 6 feet from the property line, when the neighbor's fence was closer to the cut than that.
Coel said Epidendio Construction had placed temporary erosion prevention measures in place at the site last year.
"Epidendio did not create this," said Coel.
Affinito, however, said Epidendio did create it, because the company had done the work.
Lucerne resident Donna Christopher offered the only public comment on the issue. She said Affinito has been lucky because rainfall has been down in the last few years. Otherwise, erosion would have occurred.
"It's everybody's fault but yours, Mr. Affinito," she said, adding that he needs to be held to the same codes as everyone else.
Code Enforcement Manager Voris Brumfield said, with the grading season coming to an end in October, her department needs to know what has to happen on the property before then.
Supervisor Denise Rushing, running the meeting because Board Chair Ed Robey was absent, said the board had to enforce the grading ordinance.
Coel said the question is just what is temporary at the site. "This is going to be much more than a year or two."
Smith, who said he thought the work was going to be completed last year, said a long-term fix was needed, including reducing the slope to a two-to-one ratio.
He then moved to adopt the abatement order, which passed 4-0.
Last October, the board refused to give Affinito an extension on a tentative subdivision map, which means he'll have to start that process over again before his development plan can move forward.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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