California homeowners fined $1.7 million for illegal yards on beach
(WorldNews Environment)

Nearly three dozen Newport Beach homeowners who built yards that illegally extend onto the public beach have agreed to a combined $1.7 million in fines as well as to the city restoring the encroachments to their natural state. The deal, recommended by Coastal Commission staff for the state panel to approve at its June 11 meeting, would resolve decades of illegal encroachments by beachfront homeowners on Peninsula Point located at the east end of the Balboa Peninsula. The illegal yards extend as much as 80 feet onto the sand and include lawns, hedges, trees, irrigation systems, walkways and fences. They interfere with the two central components of the 1976 Coastal Act approved by voters:...