To Whom it May Concern,
Please be reading my emails in full: We are not asking for permission to landscape on our easement. We have been doing that for years. That is not the purpose of these well thought out and detailed emails. I don’t want to “whipper snip” the steep hill in my backyard – we want to do the following 3 things:
1. fence in the lower portion and
2. install rattlesnake barrier to keep our kids safe
3. Elevate the flooding from rain
Please approve the above requests based on the fact that our property was damaged beyond repair by the city contractors, we have not been compensated, we simply want to rectify the destruction and we ask that you approve our requests.
We have natural rain flooding issues from the Easement we must fix
3. If other owners have been approved on their request, without having the property damage clause like we have
4. Other owners have Encroached on their Easements – which gives premise to our request
5. We want to do this the right way
6. We want to maintain the lower portion of our Easement, not the whole thing
7. There are rattlesnakes on the Easement portion due to the lack of proper landscape maintenance
8. We want to keep our children safe
Thank you for your time. We appreciate how busy we all are and would like to finish this up and move on – I am sure you do too. Have a great day and I look forward to your prompt, effective and cordial response.
Good afternoon Councilmember Rodriguez, Dustin wanted me to message you about the easement on our property. We have been in dialogue with the city for about 2 years, the irrigation system on our easement is broken beyond repair – and we experienced extensive property damage when the city tried to fix the problem (2 weeks after spending 20k on landscaping the area!), we found out in our investigation that this case had been prior documented in city records that our line is non-repairable.
The city sent out crews to repair all the damage and it was awesome! However, since then we have taken the easement’s lower half and managed it ourselves. Our property is the only yard that has liability due to the damaged irrigation lines. None of our neighbors have any issue with their irrigation.
Also, our home is valued at over a million dollars and it’s disheartening to have the visible part of our back yard (which is the easement) looking like a junk heap and that is just not something we are willing to do. Dustin started building a new fence which will encompass the lower portion of the easement that is non-reparable and make it safe for our children – we homeschool – so it will be their playground for recess.
I am asking if you to need come and check it out in person and make the necessary approvals so that we can finalize our construction contracts, or are pictures, and prior emails sufficient? I will send you all the previous emails sent to the city 2 years ago when Mayor Weiss was at the helm, he was so helpful and all of the follow up documentation we sent in about the easement if you would like?
The city planner is a neighbor of ours. He walks his dog past our house frequently. We were in dialogue with Rosa in prior emails and it was very difficult to get a direct answer from her. We are hoping to simply add value to our home and not put the city out in anyway. We would be saving a massive cost to the city because we are willing to irrigate and manage our property on our own and not have the landscapers do any work on the fenced in portion of our land.
Ms. Swank, my role here at the City of Oceanside is to review and process land survey related documents, encroachment removal agreements (ERA), and any other City surveying needs. Per the letter sent to you from the City of Oceanside Property Management division on May 23, 2022, you are not approved to encroach into the City easement with any new fencing and an application for vacating the easement is not supported at this time, see attached letter. Please coordinate with City of Oceanside Property Management staff to address your concerns of property damage related to maintenance of the Landscape Assessment District easement. If there was damage to your property, then you can contact City of Oceanside Risk Management at 760-435-3847.
At this time, I cannot help with processing an ERA or easement vacation application since your request to vacate the easement and/or encroach into the easement area with a fence was not approved. If you come to an agreement with the City of Oceanside Property Management division that allows you to encroach into the easement, then I will help you process the application at that time.
William Tuck, PLS
Land Surveyor
City of Oceanside
Thank you for your follow up email, Mrs. Swank.
As has been previously explained, the landscape maintenance easement does not prevent you from also performing landscaping activities in the easement area. You retain the right and responsibility to maintain your property, and no further paperwork or permission from the City is necessary as long as such maintenance does not interfere with the Landscape Maintenance Assessment District work and complies with all laws, restrictions and requirements applicable to the development.
Regards,
Jorie Lian
City of Oceanside
(760) 435-5171
As you can see from this very detailed email – please take time to read and scroll all the way to the bottom – we are taking all the proper measures to utilize the lower portion of our easement that was damaged by the city contractors. I have the 5 video and audio recordings of the damage while it was happening from 2019 and the verbal admission which proves that this water line is broken beyond repair. This effort has been a personal work of patience, great book keeping, and love. We love our house, we love our city and we love our land. We are simply trying to maintain the land we purchased back in 2015. We homeschool our children, we plan on staying and we are going to convince you that it’s a great idea to let us capture the easement that is essential to our property value. The lower portion of the water line on our easement is damaged beyond repair. We have constant rain flooding from the steep vertical pitch of our easement and no drainage or rain capturing trench to contain the volume of rain water.What paperwork do we need to fill out to ensure that we have done this in the proper way. I got a letter from Jorie Lian saying that other people were able to have Encroachment Removal Agreements – of which we were not even granted that. My question is why? It is illogical to approve one owner and not the other.
The fact premise for 3323 Par Drive allowing Encroachment Removal Agreement are found in the following key points:
1. Extensive property damage occurred in 2019 – caused by the city contractors which caused irreparable damage to our back yard
2.We have natural rain flooding issues from the Easement we must fix
3. If other owners have been approved on their request, without having the property damage clause like we have
4. Other owners have Encroached on their Easements – which gives premise to our request
5. We want to do this the right way
6. We want to maintain the lower portion of our Easement, not the whole thing
7. There are rattlesnakes on the Easement portion due to the lack of proper landscape maintenance
8. We want to keep our children safe
Thank you for your time. We appreciate how busy we all are and would like to finish this up and move on – I am sure you do too. Have a great day and I look forward to your prompt, effective and cordial response.
First Email:
We have owned our home for 3 years now and are so proud to be residents of Oceanside. We love the land we own and take great pride in how well you do your jobs, our equity has increased exponentially since we purchased our home! Thank you!
Today an unfortunate accident happened on the portion of our property maintained by the city of Oceanside. The water main, which has been decommissioned for years, broke today causing a lot of landscape damage. There have been city workers on my property for the last 5 days trying to get the water issue addressed. My neighbour has been in contact with ROSA about the water issue on the hill that is behind our property – maintained by the city.
Unfortunately something was broken as the worker was doing maintenance this morning at 9am. The water main busted and water flooded our backyard. We just paid $20,000 last month to have the grass removed, decaying cement and brick torn down and had our whole back yard landscaped with pavers and DG. We wanted to conserve our water consumption and make a wonderful place for our 2 young children to grow up and play. Our daughter, Madison, just turned 5 and our son, Cash, is 3. He rides his little electric dirt bike in the DG.
We are sad to say that now all of the clay from the hill maintained by the city drained throughout the DG and has now compromised the integrity of the DG, so regretfully, weeds and grass will grow where we paid to have them permanently removed. We are looking for your help because so much of our hard earned money has been spent to have our yard look beautiful. We are proud Oceanside Residents and we want Oceanside to be beautiful, just like all of you do too!
Please help us as we are getting no response at all from ROSA and we just want to know that people are helping us, looking out for us, and caring for the property we pay tax on.
Thank you a million times over for your amazing efforts and beautiful successes in Oceanside. Where once we were shy to say where we live we now throw our shoulders back and say OCEANSIDE! Our beautiful, safe and growing city.
We look forward to your prompt response.
Sincerely,
Katie and Dustin Swank
SIMPLY SWANK INC. 