(March 20, 2009) -- An area south of Loynes Dr. between the Los Cerritos Channel and the Mobile Home Estates was flattened/cleared yesterday (March 19) and part of today (March 20).

City Manager Pat West came to the location personally earlier today (March 20) and the grading activity had ceased by midafternoon.

Responding to LBReport.com's request for information, City Manager West advised us by telephone late this afternoon:

[paraphrase from notes]. The City was alerted earlier today that someone was doing grading in the area.

The area is the [general description] southwest corner of Studebaker and Loynes.

It's part of the SEADIP area, zoned PD1, subarea 23. Its underlying use is commercial.

It's in the Coastal zone.

There were no permits issued by the City or [to Mr. West's knowledge] by the Coastal Commission.

The City issued a stop work notice today and work has stopped.

City Mgm't believes the property was FORMERLY owned by an entity involving Tom Dean...but is now believed to have recently changed hands.

The NEW owner came to the site and had a conversation with City Manager West [who described the conversation as pleasant].

Work has stopped; the new owner agreed to remove two bulldozers from the site, which left the site at about 2:45 p.m.

There is still fill dirt visible because there's been no opportunity to remove it yet.

City management plans to meet with the new owner next week to determine [general description] what happened, how it happened and discuss permit issues and the future of the property.

Regarding the large pile of dark fill dirt/asphalt:

City Manager West says it's fill material asphalt from city streets BUT says it's not City-owned material.

City Manager West said the City of LB had a private contractor doing street work, and the private contractor [independently] sold the asphalt taken from the city streets to the new property owner (i.e. it was a transaction between a contractor who'd done work for the city and owned the asphalt and sold it to the new property owner).

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