Mohamed Hadid, known for building celebrity mega-mansions, was in the process of building the roughly 30,000-square-foot 901 Strada Vecchia in Bel Air. This property sits next to Walton Laurie's property, but has been plunged into building purgatory. After it drew the ire of some of its neighborsin particular, an entertainment lawyer who lived below the property and worried that it would slide down the hill and crush his housethe City looked into the complaints. The L.A. Department of Building and Safety pulled the home's construction permits last fall.

According to Hadid's lawyer, Bruce Rudman, one of the City's requirements had been that they build a retaining wall to hold up the hillside. It's this wall that Walton Laurie says damaged her tree by cutting into the tree's roots, the Beverly Hills Courier reports. Her company, LW Partnership, has filed a summary judgement in L.A. Superior Court against 901 Strada Vecchia, demanding that portions of the wall be removed and that she be paid $90,000 for the damage to the tree. How many trees have sacrificed their lives to make way for new Walmart superstores, we can't be certain, but this particular eucalyptus tree sure was special to the family.

The wall is 200 feet long and is 8 feet high in some places, but in others, up to 18 feet high. The summary judgement states that the wall "stands at least 100 feet on the neighboring family's property without the family's consent."

Rudman disagrees. He says that the new retaining wall simply replaces an old one that had been in the same spot previously. He said that decades earlier, Walton Laurie's land and the property belonging to the mega-mansion were one, but about 80 years or so ago, they were cut up. At that time, a wall was built to separate the two parcels. This new wall replaces that one, and it traces the exact same line, he says.

As for the tree, Rudman disagrees with that too. He says an arborist declared that the tree is just fine, and if anything is to blame for a rough patch in the tree's health, it's the drought.

[h/t to Curbed LA]

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Walmart Heiress Demands $90,000 For A Damaged Eucalyptus Tree

APNancy Walton Laurie wants $90,000 for a damaged tree.

Wal-Mart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie is suing a developer for allegedly damaging a "cherished" eucalyptus tree at her home in Los Angeles.

Walton Laurie, who is worth nearly$5 billion, is seeking $90,000 from developer Mohamed Hadid's company for apparently traumatizing the tree,Curbed LA reportsvia theBeverly Hills Courier.

The company built a 200-foot-long retaining wall on a neighboring property that"cut the roots to the family's cherished eucalyptus tree, causing it severe damage and putting it at risk of falling over," Walton Laurie claims in a summary judgement.

She wants Hadid's company to remove the wall, in addition to paying damages.

Bruce Rudman, an attorney for Hadid, says the tree is perfectly healthy and that the retaining wall is in the exact same spot as a wall that it replaced, according to the Beverly Hills Courier.

"We have an arborist who says the tree is thriving, and at one point in time was suffering from the drought," Rudman said.

Walton Laurie is the daughter of Bud Walton, who cofounded Wal-Mart with his brother, Sam Walton.

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Wal-Mart Heiress Worth $5 Billion Wants $90,000 For Damage To Her 'Cherished' Tree

Tonya Maxwell, tmaxwell@citizen-times.com 2:01 p.m. EST January 26, 2015

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Crews with Thalle Construction Co. worked last month to contain sediment from washing into the road after a retaining wall at Asheville Regional Airport collapsed Dec. 24.(Photo: Katie Bailey/bkbailey@citizen-times.com)

ASHEVILLE A construction company building a retaining wall up to four stories high at Asheville Regional Airport without a permit has been given the go-ahead to continue work, Buncombe County officials said.

The contractor, Thalle Construction Co., based in Hillsborough, paid $22,274 for the permit late last week, said Matt Stone, director of the permits and inspections office. That cost included a fine, which doubled the permit cost, for failing to obtain the required documentation before construction of the wall.

Shortly before Christmas, wall panels on the structure, nearly complete, began collapsing on one end and buckling on the other following rain. The wall is composed of concrete panels about five feet square and is four-stories tall at its peak and nearly one quarter of a mile long.

Fill dirt from behind the structure washed across Ferncliff Park Drive and into wetlands adjacent to the French Broad River, prompting the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to issue a violation notice for the leaching sediment.

Afterward, county officials learned Thalle Construction Co. had never pulled a permit for the $2.6 million project.

Original post:
Airport retaining wall work gets OK after permit obtained

Molly Meng with retaining wall rev3 StoryBoard 01 001

By: Joe Cayton

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A man who died when his pickup truck rolled off a bridge early Saturday morning on the North Side has been identified by as Calvin Bunton, 27, according to the Bexar County medical examiners office.

Bunton was driving a 1978 Chevrolet pickup southbound in the 9200 block of the Interstate 35 access road just before 3:30 a.m., when he lost control and crashed into a guardrail, according to the San Antonio Police Department.

The pickup ended up balanced on the bridge's retaining wall, then flipped over the edge of the bridge, onto the main lanes in the 3000 block of Northeast Loop 410, police said.

Emergency medical technicians pronounced the man dead at the scene.

Staff Writer Alia Malik contributed to this report.

jbeltran@express-news.net

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Authorities identify man who died after pickup flipped over North Side retaining wall

Molly Meng with retaining wall and new deck plan StoryBoard 01 001

By: Joe Cayton

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Molly Meng with retaining wall and new deck plan StoryBoard 01 001 - Video

Kinect exterior scan sample using Scanect
I attached a Xbox 360 Kinect to a small Winbook 7" tablet, I run the kinect off a battery like people use to jumpstart their cars. With Skanect, this scan took about a minute. I #39;ve also had...

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Kinect exterior scan sample using Scanect - Video

A fresh damage occurred to the retaining wall of the beach road here on Saturday. This time an 18-metre stretch of the wall, adjacent to the new year breach, was washed away in the day due to the rough seas.

The damage happening to a stretch very close to the main venue of the ongoing three-day Visakha Utsav raised an alarm among the officials. MP Muttamsetti Srinivasa Rao rushed to the spot to inspect the damage and told the media that he would bring it to the notice of the Chief Minister and ensure that steps are taken to repair it on a war-footing.

City Police Commissioner Amit Garg, who inspected the site, directed the police officials to immediately cordon off the area to ensure no pedestrians or traffic is put to risk. Additional police forces would be deployed along the coast near the breach along with swimmers and boats to minimise the risk for visitors to the Visakha Utsav celebrations, he told media persons at the site.

Commissioner of Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation Pravin Kumar, who also visited the site, told mediapersons that as an immediate measure the breach would be plugged using boulders and gravel. Long term steps would be taken up in consultation with experts, he said. Since the Visakhapatnam Port Trust would be taking up dredging and beach nourishment starting February the problem would be addressed to some extent, he added.

The dynamic nature of the currents and wave direction beach erosion is a risk the city would have to live with. One option is to build a sea wall along the beach road to protect it, oceanographic expert and professor in Gayatri Vidya Parishad College of Engineering (Autonomous) Rao Tatavarti said after inspecting the site.

There is no quick fix solution for the beach erosion, there is a need for a comprehensive study of the data like wave motion and bathymetry before a permanent solution can be drawn up, he said.

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GEOWEB Reinforced Retaining Wall Cross-Section Animation
An easy-to-follow, step by step, installation video for the GEOWEB Earth Retention (Reinforced Wall) System.

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GEOWEB Reinforced Retaining Wall Cross-Section Animation - Video

ROGERSVILLE West Greene School Board expects to receive a report by the end of the month from the consultant hired to investigate the cause of the collapse of a retaining wall at the new elementary school.

The board plans to discuss the consultants findings at its next building and grounds committee meeting Feb. 5.

The board approved several motions Thursday regarding the elementary project and recessed the meeting until 7:30 p.m. Jan. 29.

The retaining wall, which runs about 760 feet behind the new school and at its highest reaches 31 feet, collapsed Nov. 13. Nothing changed regarding the condition of the wall since then, Superintendent Thelma Szarell said Thursday.

The board in November accepted Michael Baker International LLC as an independent consultant to the district and architect. The company was asked to investigate the cause of the collapse and develop a plan to reconstruct the wall.

To review Bakers work, the board also hired its own peer review consultants, Pennsylvania Soil and Rock Inc.

The elementary school is nearly completed. Basically, everything is done, but there are a lot of very small things that still have to be addressed, Szarell said. The repair of a scratch on a finished surface, she said, is an example.

The district plans to begin using the building at the start of the next school year in August.

The board voted Thursday to pay Pennsylvania Soil and Rock Inc. $14,228.10 for work it completed between Nov. 18 and Jan. 3.

It approved a motion directing URS, the districts construction manager, to issue a construction change directive deleting certain work from the scope of work included in the agreement with Liokareas Construction Co. Inc., the general contractor.

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West Greene to receive report on failed retaining wall