Time is running out for Tai Dang's oceanfront vacation home - before the year is done, he fears the house with sweeping views of the water and Rockaway Beach's signature Twin Rocks will tumble down a crumbling bluff and onto the sand below.

It now sits just 8 feet from the edge of the dune. The foundation of a staircase leading from the back deck to the beach already has started to slip.

One thing could save it - setting riprap at the base of the bluff -- but virtually every one of his neighbors, the city, the state and conservationists all oppose piling up a wall of boulders to deflect the waves.

"Basic common sense should tell you that it shouldn't have been built there," said Phillip Johnson, executive director of the Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition. "We have little sympathy for him. ... He knew what he was doing."

Such battles are only expected to increase along the state's 363 miles of coastline as winter storms grow more fierce, sea levels rise due to climate change and beach erosion intensifies, said Jonathan Allan, a coastal geomorphologist with the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.

"I'm not aware of anyone's house falling into the ocean because they weren't allowed to put up riprap, but it's coming. I think we're going to see more and more of this," said Allan, who has taken no position on Dang's case.

The bluff that Tai Dang's vacation home sits on has eroded about 50 feet in roughly the past two decades.

Oregon's coastal history is rife with similar examples of humans vs. nature, notably the disappearance of the entire city of Bayocean and the effort to save luxury homes in The Capes development, both just south of Rockaway Beach in Tillamook County.

Built seven years ago, Dang's six-bedroom $1 million Tuscan-style villa stands out in a town filled with many older, more modest homes. It has granite countertops, a wrought-iron banister, three glass chandeliers, a dolphin tile mosaic and a hot tub to soak in the view. County records indicate it's owned by two others - Dang describes them as business partners. But Dang's name is the only one on the riprap application and he has become the public face of the fight.

Dang, his wife and two children discovered Rockaway Beach about a decade ago and were struck by the beauty and peace of the setting, he said. It took them three more years before they found a piece of land and built their dream vacation home - a family getaway less than a two-hour drive from their Northwest Portland house.

"We've spent a lot of time there," Dang said. "Thanksgiving. Christmas. Spring break. Instead of going somewhere else we went there. ... When we've had relatives come to town, we'd go there. Great memories. A lot of good times."

It's not that some neighbors don't feel for Dang and his potential loss; they just don't like his solution - a remedy that has generated controversy for years as unsightly and unpredictable.

Conservationists say riprap in one place can cause erosion elsewhere as it changes how waves hit nearby beaches. It also can scrape away the beach in front of it. But even if it doesn't, its mere presence consumes precious public beach by narrowing already thin stretches of sand, they say.

At an Oregon Parks and Recreation Department hearing last year on Dang's permit, 11 people testified against his proposal. No one testified for it. At a cost of at least $15,000, the riprap would be 81 feet long, 14 feet high and project out 30 feet from the base of the bluff onto the beach.

"I hope that you do not allow him to put riprap (there)," said neighbor Alice Pyne. "Because if you do, there will be a domino effect, and I will be sitting in front of you next year asking you to put riprap in front of my house."

"In my opinion, he's got what he got," said Donald Bryan, a Gresham resident whose family has a house near Dang's. "Everybody takes their chance that lives on the oceanfront."

Dang consulted a geologist about the land's stability, the city told him exactly where to build the house and then approved all of the necessary permits, he said.

"I'm not reckless," he said. "I'm very conservative. ... I looked to my left and I looked to my right and I didn't see any homes in Rockaway Beach getting washed away."

He's confounded by the opposition to his riprap application.

"It's more than cold - it's icy," Dang said. "We got the blessing from the city and played by the rules. ...You're telling me you'll enjoy seeing my house going down to the ocean? It seems very unfair."

Cherished beaches

Oregonians have long treasured public access to ocean beaches. A bill approved in 1913 by Gov. Oswald West declared the state's beaches a public highway. In 1936, the completion of U.S. 101 prompted droves of Oregonians to explore the coastline. In 1967, the Oregon Beach Bill called for "free and uninterrupted use of the beaches" and allowed the state to regulate development on them.

In 1973, state lawmakers set out to limit the use of riprap by allowing only landowners on beachfront properties developed with homes, businesses or utility lines before Jan. 1, 1977, to install riprap if no other viable alternatives exists.

Owners of land developed after then generally are out of luck.

That harsh reality can seem tough to accept for homeowners denied permits.

Mounds of riprap dot the northern, more populous half of the Oregon coast. Riprap fronts virtually the entire town of Neskowin, 45 miles south of Dang's house, a vestige of rapid erosion in the late 1990s of the dunes that separated the city from the water.

In 1999, the state also allowed about 50 waterfront property owners in Rockaway Beach, starting less than a mile north of Dang's vacation home, to install a 4,000-foot-long wall of riprap after as much as 100 feet of protective dune washed away in a single winter.

Dang's property was developed long before 1977: A house built in the 1930s once stood on the property, according to a geologist's report. Given that history, the property normally would qualify for riprap -- and Dang and his attorney contend in court papers that previous owners placed riprap in front of the property.

But Dang's house has been disqualified for another reason, state records indicate: It violated Rockaway Beach's land-use rules by being built too close to the ocean.

City at first said 'yes'



Dang's Portland lawyer, Ross Day, said Dang wouldn't have built the house where he did if a private licensed surveyor hadn't told him it was behind the zone's ocean shore setback line and the city signed off on the project.

Officials of the 1,300-resident town even sent him a letter in 2009 after the construction was complete and visiting the site in person, said Day, who presented a copy of the letter to The Oregonian/OregonLive. The letter stated that "the structure meets current required setbacks. ...Thank you for complying with all City standards and regulations and we look forward to working with you in the future," the letter reads.

Day said it was only after Dang applied to put down riprap years later that the city determined it had allowed Dang to build too close to the ocean. Although the city sent the state a letter in January 2015 endorsing Dang's riprap application, it reversed its position by that April, state records show.

The city has put Dang in an untenable position, Day said.

"Even though he put (his house) where the city told him to put it ... now the city's position is 'You shouldn't have listened to us,'" Day said.

Rockaway Beach's city attorney, mayor and other members of the City Council didn't return emails or phone calls seeking comment.

But even if Dang's house sidles up closer than it should to the beach, the state's denial of Dang's riprap application ignores state law and instead is based on a Parks and Recreation rule, Day said.

Last month, Dang asked a Tillamook County Circuit Court judge to order the city and the state to allow him to use riprap. A hearing date hasn't yet been set.

'I'm on the verge of losing it'



Oregon doesn't have many examples where homes actually have tumbled into the ocean or have been relocated because riprap wasn't allowed, historians say.

The state typically receives a few requests for riprap each year. The numbers spike after stormy winters. Over the past decade, the state has received about 30 applications.

Besides Dang's request, the state has denied only one other application during that time -- in 2011 from three homeowners in Gleneden Beach. Their homes ranged between 13 and 32 feet from an eroding bluff's lip. The state rejected the application not because the homes didn't meet the 1977 standard -- at least one of them did -- but because they weren't deemed at "immediate" risk yet. The homes are still there today.

The dune underneath Dang's house has been eroding since at least the early 1980s, according to a geologist who studied the property for Dang in 2014. Over the past two decades, about 50 feet of it has vanished. Lately, waves have chewed away more than 3 feet each year.

The geologist wrote that attempts to ward off the ocean with a driftwood wall failed. The wall has since been washed away.

The geologist also wrote that attempts to stabilize the dune with Hooker willow are unlikely to work because of lack of water to support the erosion-fighting plants. And bulldozing a mountain of sand in front of the house would probably just delay the inevitable.

The best long-term solution, wrote Seaside geologist Tom Horning, is riprap.

Dang hasn't yet investigated an 11th-hour rescue: taking the 3,300-square-foot house off its foundation and relocating it, his lawyer said. It's not clear if that's even practical because the house might be too big, Day said.

Dang, who immigrated from Vietnam to the U.S. when he was 14, said he worked his way through college and relied on scholarships to become an electrical engineer. He's worked hard to get to the point that he could afford a vacation home.

"When we came over here, we had nothing," said Dang, now 55. "We started from ground zero."

He sees allowing his home to slide down to the beach as an unnecessary waste and unjust taking of his property.

"It's crazy," Dang said. "My house, I'm on the verge of losing it."

- Aimee Green

503-294-5119