DATE: Tuesday, October 28, 1997             TAG: 9710280272

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MIKE ABRAMS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   83 lines

BEACH REMOVING FAILED BULKHEADS AMID PROTEST SEVEN OWNERS REFUSE TO FIX OR REMOVE THEIR BARRIERS.

Ignoring a raw drizzle, Sandbridge residents trickled out in sweat suits and ball caps Monday morning to watch workers uproot troubling metal from the beach.

It was a long time in the making.

The rusty beams and sheets combine to form bulkheads, which for two years have been on the city's most wanted list.

Beach officials have pushed property owners to fix or remove 43 of the failed and hazardous structures. All but seven owners did so. Because the holdouts wouldn't remove the barriers, the city hired a contractor to do it for them.

Demolition began Monday, even as two of the holdouts tried last-ditch efforts to keep the metal in place.

Randy Zehmer, who built a house on Sandfiddler Road, filed Monday for a preliminary injunction in Virginia Beach Circuit Court. He doesn't want crews to remove his bulkhead, which he says he fixed.

The city has said his repairs aren't good enough.

``We obviously think we're on solid ground,'' said Deputy City Attorney Richard J. Beaver.

A judge will hear the case Wednesday.

The other holdout, Helen McDonald, called the police to stop the demolition, even though it was taking place on another owner's vacant lot.

``My friends asked me to go up there to watch their property,'' she said.

The police responded. They didn't stop the work.

The bulkheads originally went up in the late 1980s. The barriers were designed to keep the homes on stilts from slipping with the sand into an unforgiving ocean.

But storms have left the bulkheads twisted, bent and rusted.

The city has argued that the structures pose a public hazard and stand in the way of a planned $8.1 million beach-widening project for Sandbridge. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to do the work next year, if the bulkheads are fixed or removed.

The contractor that built the structures, Beach-based Waterfront Marine Construction, also is performing the demolition.

Crews must remove more than four dozen 20-foot steel piles and pry apart interlocking sheets of metal that stretch along the shore. The job is expected to take up to two months.

``It's pretty mundane work,'' said Randy Sutton, president of Waterfront Marine.

For the holdouts, Sutton's company has been a source of frustration.

The property owners say the builder didn't make the bulkheads properly and should be forced to fix them. Under the city contract, however, Waterfront Marine gets $72,300 and the residents receive the bill.

The contractor started on a vacant lot owned by Barber Limited Liability Co. of Richmond. The owners gave their permission.

Still, trouble awaits one lot to the south, on a property owned by Stephen and Judy Pfouts of Pennsylvania.

The Pfouts say the bulkhead on their property has been fixed, which is where Randy Zehmer's court filing comes into play.

He built the home and sold it to the Pfouts. He said he paid about $25,000 to have the bulkhead fixed.

Pfouts called the city's actions ``absolutely absurd.''

Protests aside, the first day of demolition mostly was about neighbors stopping by to see if the years of controversy would spill onto the beach.

``I just wanted to see what was going to happen,'' said Gus Hubal, a retired Navy captain who owns a home a few blocks from the site. ``The public good is what I'm interested in.''

U.T. Brown, a retiree who owns seven Sandbridge homes, was relieved to see the work begin.

``I don't think what has happened over the last five or six years has been good for Sandbridge,'' he said. ``This is really a great community. It really is.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

D. KEVIN ELLIOTT/The Virginian-Pilot

A Waterfront Marine Construction worker cuts up a bulkhead at

Sandbridge Monday. Crews must remove more than four dozen 20-foot

steel piles and pry apart interlocking sheets of metal along the

shore.

Graphic

THE HOLDOUTS WILL HAVE TO PAY $72,300 FOR REMOVAL OF THE BULKHEADS. KEYWORDS: BULKHEAD SANDBRIDGE

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu