By: 5:00 am on December 30 Planning permits have been approved for the seaside mansion at 496 Sea Cliff Avenue in San Francisco. In the ultra-wealthy Sea Cliff neighborhood, the project is being built for one the richest residents, the trust of former presidential candidate and local billionaire Tom Steyer. Amy Lee of 3S San Francisco 496 Sea Cliff Avenue central courtyard view rendering by Sean Bailey Design and Studio Earth Work 496 Sea Cliff Avenue seen from China Beach Sean Bailey Design and Studio Earth Work are jointly responsible for the design The plan set shows a biophilic modern house with a cascade of terraces capped with native grass to camouflage the house Cedarwood soffits and panels will bring additional warmth in contrast to the basalt pavers and structural concrete walls The shifting volumes and open courtyards are reminiscent of the influential Fallingwater House by Frank Lloyd Wright Plans include a three-story home and a junior accessory dwelling unit Construction is expected to cost around $4 million The project team has yet to reply to a request for comment as of the time of publication 496 Sea Cliff Avenue views of Golden Gate Park and China Beach 494 (right) and 496 Sea Cliff Avenue (left) existing condition The property is owned by the Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor Revocable Trust The family is also the owner of the adjacent home at 494 Sea Cliff Avenue Steyer gained wealth as the founder of Farallon Capital While he is certainly among the richer known residents of the neighborhood he is by no means the wealthiest when compared with the tech magnates Jack Dorsey and Marc Benioff Former residents have been Ansel Adams and Robin Williams Subscribe to YIMBY’s daily e-mail Follow YIMBYgram for real-time photo updates Like YIMBY on Facebook Follow YIMBY’s Twitter for the latest in YIMBYnews ga('send', 'event', ‘Robert ‘Becker, 'Impression', 'https://sfyimby.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/desktop-ad.jpg', { nonInteraction: true }); ADVERTISEMENT ga('send', 'event', 'SF YIMBY', 'Impression', 'https://sfyimby.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/sfyimbyadnews.jpg', { nonInteraction: true }); ga('send', 'event', 'SF YIMBY', 'Impression', 'https://sfyimby.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/sf-yimby-dot-com-graphic.jpg', { nonInteraction: true }); Follow on Instagram © COPYRIGHT New York YIMBY LLC TrendingResidentialSan FranciscoAShorenstein sells Sea Cliff home for $30M One of SF’s most well-known real estate families got $30M One of San Francisco’s most famous real estate families has sold its long-time Sea Cliff home for $30 million Neill Bassi of Sotheby’s International Realty was involved in the sale of the cliff-top home overlooking the Pacific but it is unclear if he represented the buyer and he did not immediately reply to a request for comment Shorenstein’s Pacific Real Estate Associates bought the 1905 Sea Cliff property with a three-car garage for $3 million more than 35 years ago a trust for Curran Theatre owner and Broadway producer Carole Shorenstein Hays sister to Douglas and daughter of Shorenstein Properties founder Walter Shorenstein When Douglas died in 2015 he still owned 99 percent of the property according to an affidavit of death filed in 2019 by First Republic Trust Company of Delaware Shorenstein Properties and a representative for the trust did not immediately reply to a request for comment SIGN UPA 2004 San Francisco Chronicle profile said that, at the time, Shorenstein Hays lived in Sea Cliff with her husband and two children, had a waterfront view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Robin Williams as her neighbor. Williams’ former home around the corner from 260 Sea Cliff recently sold for $18.1 million While the Shorensteins are known for their commercial real estate holdings, like the former Twitter building Shorenstein Hays has handled her family’s entertainment investments Walter Shorenstein entered a partnership with the New York-based Nederlander family of theater owners to take on the master lease at the Curran the partners bought and refurbished the Golden Gate Theatre After Shorenstein Hays bought the Curran in 2010 and was perceived by the Nederlanders to be competing against the SHN partnership for touring Broadway shows Shorenstein Hays gave up her half ownership of SHN which now operates the Orpheum and Golden Gate under the name Broadway SF and retained her ownership of the Curran as a separate entity Shorenstein Hays is also the producer of several Tony Award-winning and nominated Broadway shows including “Fences,” “Fun Home,” “Doubt,” “Caroline Correction: This story has been edited to reflect that The Real Deal doesn’t know who is behind the LLC Pirate’s Booty Snacks founder Robert Ehrlich claimed to be tiny Long Island community’s mayor – voters disagreed The popcorn mogul who founded Pirate’s Booty Snacks tried to commandeer a New York village’s local government storming this minuscule municipality’s office armed with a false statement claiming that he was mayor Robert Ehrlich strode into the town hall of Sea Cliff a village of fewer than 5,000 residents within the larger town of Oyster Bay on Long Island with all the finesse of a literal pirate on 10 March He “presented a statement falsely asserting his authority as mayor, demanding access to office space, and declaring that the entire village staff was fired effective immediately but could reapply for their jobs”, authorities said on Facebook Ehrlich, 66, cited a New York state law that permits local residents “to dissolve their town or reformulate it”, the New York Times explained one needs signatures from 10% of town voters Ehrlich brandished an envelope claiming that he had 1,800 signatures – but reportedly refused to show it to town workers alleging that signatories were worried about blowback After village employees told Ehrlich that his proclamation was “invalid and unsupported by law”, they asked him to leave. But Ehrlich and his associates turned “increasingly confrontational and refused” the village said in a Facebook post The pushback left Ehrlich’s timbers un-shivered and engaged in direct harassment of Village personnel” the post added – and would not raise anchor This created “a hostile and disruptive environment that required police intervention” Village workers suffered “nearly an hour of escalating hostility before Mr Ehrlich and his associates left and order was restored” Village leaders thanked office staff for remaining cool-headed and respectful despite “being subjected to intense and outlandish behavior” “They are a credit to our Village and demonstrate the motto of ‘Keep Calm and Carry On,’” the Facebook post said Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker Snack king Robert Ehrlich is a write-in candidate for his tiny village of Sea Cliff — and officials aren’t having it Robert Ehrlich, the inventor of everyone’s favorite puffy, cheesy snack Pirate’s Booty, added to his lore this week. In addition to being an owner in Holiday Cocktail Lounge This one is located about an hour’s drive over in Nassau County, in the tiny town of Sea Cliff, where he is an infamous resident. One that is now at the center of political controversy: Ehrlich, 66, has self-proclaimed himself mayor of his sleepy seaside village of 5,000, per News 12 a successful dissolution of village government requires 10 percent of its population — or 500 people in Sea Cliff — to sign a petition.) Ehrlich’s claim to food fame is Pirate’s Booty, the airy corn-and-rice snack he founded in 1987. The popular pantry staple made Ehrlich rich, to say the least; B&G Foods bought Pirate Brands for $195 million in 2013, and Hershey scooped up the cash-cow conglomerate for a whopping $420 million in 2018 The status of Ehrlich’s controversial political title remains unclear. “The activities of daily governance are unchanged, and the Village of Sea Cliff continues to operate under the guidance of its duly elected Board of Trustees,” per a statement on Facebook Sea Cliff residents are encouraged to vote on Tuesday with incumbent Mayor Elena Villafane running unopposed “We can’t risk a write in winning this election,” comments one resident All the new restaurant openings in New York this month Plans have been approved for a striking modern mansion to be built on property with sweeping Golden Gate views that is currently occupied by a nearly 90-year-old home in SF's Sea Cliff neighborhood The plans are for 496 Sea Cliff Avenue, the current occupant of which is a large, 5,500-square-foot home built in 1938. As the Chronicle tells us the Planning Department has approved permits for Tom Steyer and his family trust to construct a 7,500-square-foot three-story manse on this cliff-top property and the plan seems to be to keep 494 Sea Cliff Avenue intact — perhaps with him and his family occupying that home while the other is under construction The plans for 496 Sea Cliff, as SF YIMBY first reported last month include a 900-square-foot ADU (accessory dwelling unit) The design by Sean Bailey Design and Studio Earth Work is reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright's work and cascading plants off of terraces — with green roofs as well planted with native vegetation Steyer, a well known environmental activist, gained his wealth as founder of the hedge fund Farallon Capital. Longtime SFist readers may recall that Steyer spent $10 million back in 2017 on a national ad campaign calling for Donald Trump's impeachment saying that he was threatening news organizations and pushing the US "to the brink of nuclear war." This was two years before Trump would ultimately get impeached for the first time Steyer has also been a megadonor to the Democratic Party, and he briefly ran for president himself in 2019/2020 Two high-profile examples of Bay Area law enforcement personnel being on the wrong side of the opioid trade are back in the news just with lighter sentencing than what law enforcement usually clamors for in the newspapers the celebrated Vietnamese American chef who first brought modern elevated versions of Vietnamese dishes to San Francisco three decades ago Get the latest posts delivered right to your inbox Barmann is a fiction writer and web editor who's lived in San Francisco for 20+ years Get all the latest & greatest posts delivered straight to your inbox a pair of mother-daughter handmade pocketbooks and a Norman Rockwell-style painting with a twist have one thing in common: They can all be found making their debuts in stores and exhibits in Sea Cliff and owner Aimee Dibartolomeo at Dreams West in Sea Cliff Dreams East was a popular spiritual-healing shop in Roslyn Village Dreams West owner Aimee Dibartolomeo recalls I bought my first pair of Birkenstocks in that Roslyn Village shop I remember telling my friends one day I wanted to open my own Dreams East." Over time when Dibartolomeo heard the Sea Cliff shop was for sale she jumped at the chance to recreate it with a contemporary spin Dreams West in Sea Cliff sells items including locally made cutting boards Handmade products created by Long Island artisans are displayed in individual sections — as if they’re "shops within a shop." In addition to crystals and stones Yoga for all ages and reiki sessions are offered weekly "how to read tarot card" classes and bring them to a place that feels safe and they can decompress from everything in life while they’re in workshops." Get ready for the weekend with our picks on where to shop By clicking Sign up, you agree to our privacy policy Participants in a sound healing meditation conducted by Graciela Bustos at Dreams West in Sea Cliff MORE INFO: 516-200-5533; dreamswestli.com If you inherited a crystal vase and a plastic flamingo and don't know what to do with them they'll be a perfect fit in It's Just Dishy Sea Cliff's new consignment shop with quick turnaround Through online auctions as well as sales in the shop co-owner John Bryant will find a home for things you don't need "I take stuff people don't want to deal with," Bryant says He doesn’t set a hard-and-fast price for merchandise  bring in an item you’d like Bryant to sell create a reasonable starting price and put it up for sale on his online auction (auctionninja.com) Bryant runs his auctions for a week or more Nearly all pieces are from Long Island and the tristate area You’ll find everything from funky neckties to nostalgic Christmas ornaments and area rugs "I’m a recycler of people’s treasures," Bryant says MORE INFO: 646-651-3278; by appointment only prepares a chocolate mold alongside owner Terry Kenniff during the truffle-making workshop at COCO Confections + Coffee store in Sea Cliff owner-chocolatier Terry Kenniff is now offering hands-on truffle-making workshops He leads participants through every phase of the truffle-making process — the history "It makes you think when you eat a delicious piece of chocolate how much goes into making it," he says Everyone leaves with 20 truffles they've created themselves resulting in the finished chocolate truffles during the truffle-making workshop at COCO Confections + Coffee Chocolate workshop student Stephanie Maslin "I loved pouring and swiping the chocolate flipping it over and using the chocolate machine," Maslin says "I felt like a real chocolate maker." MORE INFO: 516-277-2657; coco-li.com; register for truffle workshops online Illustrator Norman Rockwell accepted very few students during his lifetime a longtime Sea Cliff resident and magazine illustrator He and Rockwell continued to be friendly for the rest of their lives "Stevenson Academy-The Legacy of Harold Ransom Stevenson," highlights illustrations and paintings created by Stevenson (1924-1985) "Rockwell’s folksy-Americana style is very present The exhibit screams the 1940s and '50s," says Courtney Chambers as Stevenson’s works fill the walls in the gallery the combination of the two artists’ sensibilities blend seamlessly Stevenson created more than 60 covers for 60 publications MORE INFO: 516-801-3401; seacliffmuseum.org; exhibit runs through Dec arugula and housemade chive ranch dressing at Foster in Sea Cliff During a stroll in Sea Cliff, check out this farm-to-table restaurant. It’s one of Feed Me's Top 50 restaurants a trial lunch menu is offered on Thursdays and Fridays through mid-November a tempura fish-of-the-day sandwich and shrimp and grits are just a few of the creative MORE INFO: 516-759-0100; fosterrestaurant.com The Newsday app makes it easier to access content without having to log in Unlimited Digital AccessOnly 25¢for 6 months This Sea Cliff bungalow is on the market for nearly $2 million Rob Himes' son had lived in four different Sea Cliff homes his father had renovated to resell "The house we're in now was a stretch for me to get," said Himes "We've really made it something special The parcel includes a main house with four bedrooms and 3½ bathrooms as well as a detached 800-square-foot apartment with one bedroom and bathroom "It's extremely challenging to get that particular situation legalized now so that's kind of cool about the property," said Himes who confirmed the legality of the arrangement Himes purchased the property for $700,000 in September 2023 having previously flipped the house next door which fall within the North Shore Central School District it just sat empty," he said of the main house Himes put in close to $1 million in renovations to the main house and the cottage Seven-foot ceilings on the lower level are now 9-foot ceilings thanks to underpinning plumbing and electrical systems; the siding three-level main house has "been gutted back to the studs," said Melinda Toner Himes' sister and Compass listing agent "Every single thing in that home is brand new except the front door," Toner said The 3,050-square-foot main house has three levels Himes retrofitted the front door of the main house with new hinges and a new lock set and created a new frame for it with weatherstripping but is meant to replicate the cedar shake aesthetic the home wore before It was a priority to not "disrupt the neighborhood" by changing the style of the home he worked to retain its "original charm and appeal." "The house very much looks the same way as it did when we purchased it "We replaced everything very close to being in kind." The house is heated by natural gas and forced air The project as a whole includes many hidden closets and other practical features "Every little nook and cranny has been utilized for storage or an office or a little playroom and he kind of does that in all of his builds he makes really good use of every inch of space," she said bok choy and drizzled with honey at Foster in Sea Cliff With minimal signage and a clubby atmosphere Foster is almost too contemporary for the picturesque village of Sea Cliff Jason and Tanya Potter met in Manhattan’s restaurant trenches and went on to revitalize one of the Sea Cliff's longest-running culinary acts Jason was the corporate executive chef at the New York-based Blue Ribbon restaurant group And his wife Tanya was an executive at Empire Merchants The Sea Cliff residents took the reins from previous owners Anita and Billy Long and in 2022 renamed the restaurant after Jason's grandfather one bar for cocktails and another set up with the best seats in the house: looking into the open kitchen that features a wood-fired pizza oven and a wood-fired grill Foster owners Jason and Tanya Potter at their restaurant in Sea Cliff The menu wears its other modern bona fides lightly Starter highlights include miso bone marrow with house-baked challah bread and a creamy ranch salad of fresh pea greens and crumbled potato chips The pizzas ($19 to $24) are a worldly assortment with toppings like cevapi sausage and kajmak cheese (a riff on the food of the Balkans) and another with pancetta and Korean kimchi The dough is sturdy enough to hold the ideas it would be better to visit another Newsday Top 50 restaurant which fires a Berkshire pork chop with rhubarb jam ($38) and a Foster burger with aioli You'll have the best experience if you take a group and share a bunch of the small plates leaning heavily into the vast assortment of Asian-inflected specials Together they scream "chef" with a capital C Copyright ©2025 Newsday. All rights reserved. Oyster Bay Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino, Town Clerk Richard LaMarca and Tax Receiver Jeffrey Pravato announce that new pickleball courts are now open for play at Harry Tappen Beach in Sea Cliff. Due to popular demand, the Town constructed new pickleball courts for local residents. “Pickleball is a fun sport for all ages that combines elements of tennis, badminton, and ping pong. It’s become incredibly popular in our Town, with seniors and families playing daily at our existing courts,” said Supervisor Saladino. “Due to this popular demand, I’m proud to announce that the Town of Oyster Bay constructed new pickleball courts for all residents to enjoy.” “Pickleball is a very fun, social and healthy activity for the whole family and these new courts will be a welcome addition to the community. So, grab your sneakers and paddle, and get ready to play one of the world’s fastest growing sports at the new courts in in Sea Cliff this summer!” added Town Clerk Richard LaMarca. Robert Ehrlich attempted to seize control of his coastal Long Island village on March 10, citing an obscure New York law as grounds for his takeover Volume 8 - 2021 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.669372 This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in 3D Habitat Mapping of Marine Ecosystem Ecology and ConservationView all 15 articles Recent advances in deep-sea exploration with underwater vehicles have led to the discovery of vertical environments inhabited by a diverse sessile fauna vertical habitats remain poorly characterized by conventional downward-looking survey techniques Here we present a high-resolution 3-dimensional habitat map of a vertical cliff hosting a suspension-feeding community at the flank of an underwater glacial trough in the Greenland waters of the Labrador Sea Using a forward-looking set-up on a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) a high-resolution multibeam echosounder was used to map out the topography of the deep-sea terrain Navigational accuracy was improved through a combination of the USBL and the DVL navigation of the ROV Multi-scale terrain descriptors were derived and assigned to the 3D point cloud of the terrain Following an unsupervised habitat mapping approach the application of a K-means clustering revealed four potential habitat types the ecological significance of the four habitat clusters was assessed in order to evaluate the benefit of unsupervised habitat mapping for further fine-scale ecological studies of vertical environments This study demonstrates the importance of a priori knowledge of the terrain around habitats that are rarely explored for ecological investigations It also emphasizes the importance of remote characterization of habitat distribution for assessing the representativeness of benthic faunal studies often constrained by time-limited sampling activities This case study further identifies current limitations (e.g. irregular terrain acquisition difficulties) that can potentially limit the use of deep-sea terrain models for fine-scale investigations mapping the habitats and identifying the factors driving species distribution on vertical structures are of high importance for defining conservation plans in complex deep-sea environments acoustic surveys remain a technical challenge in deep vertical environments this aspect of acoustic vertical mapping has not yet been investigated nor has it been used for the study of substrate characteristics and their distribution at vertical geomorphological features This study uses acoustic data collected with a MBES front-mounted onto a ROV at a deep-sea wall located offshore Western Greenland with the aim to (i) improve the workflow to obtain well-navigated vertical bathymetry and retrieve substrate information (ii) map out the habitat diversity by applying an unsupervised habitat mapping method based on abiotic terrain variables and (iii) test if the unsupervised abiotic classes contain different benthic communities characterized with ROV photography This site was then selected to investigate habitat characteristics following an unsupervised habitat mapping approach using small-scale descriptors derived from a near-vertical terrain mapped in high resolution during the Isis Dive D334 of July 21st 2017 (C) The underwater wall with segments representing the ROV tracks carried out at depths of 740 and 790 m with a multibeam echosounder (MBES) front-mounted on the underwater vehicle Isis The ROV was piloted 25 m off the vertical terrain with headings of: 137° (green lines) and 214° (red lines) The datasets of the survey lines recorded with similar heading were merged after aberrant soundings were manually removed in CARAIBES. This resulted in two 0.3 m-resolution point clouds, one for each part of the wall, which were exported as point clouds in .txt and back-rotated to their initial reference system in R (Robert et al., 2017) The software CloudCompare (v.2.11; 2019) was used to spatially combine the point clouds collected with different ROV headings Small lateral adjustments (<10 m) had to be made as slight offsets of latitude and longitude arose between both point clouds possibly as a result of the smoothing operations of the navigation Backscatter intensity was corrected in the Seabat7k software for spherical spreading and absorption losses based on the water temperature and salinity at depth The acoustic signal amplitudes recorded in the .s7k files did not represent the actual reflectivity in dB The backscatter extraction with the function Epremo of CARAIBES simply relays that information while the function Ereamo performs the projection in the 3D space No correction accounting for the true incidence angle on the seafloor was applied A mosaic was created using the smoothed and rotated navigation coordinates and further exported in a point cloud with a resolution of 0.3 m The backscatter was also back-rotated in R and merged with the bathymetry point cloud by averaging the four nearest backscatter values based on the X,Y,Z coordinates of the bathymetric points For further information on the bathymetry and backscatter extraction workflow in CARAIBES, Supplementary Figure 1 details the complete processing workflow Abiotic descriptors were calculated for each point of the point cloud This produced the input dataset for the subsequent clustering: a matrix where each point (i.e. backscatter intensity and its terrain derivatives values (i.e. Variables used for the unsupervised habitat mapping Orthogonal rotation improves the PCs’ independence by maximizing the variance shared among items related to one factor therefore enabling easier interpretation of the factor loading pattern (i) every data point is assigned temporarily to the closest center in the Euclidean space defined by the RCs and (ii) each cluster center is then repositioned to the average coordinates of the temporary cluster Both operations (i) and (ii) are repeated iteratively until the positions of the cluster centers converge below a chosen threshold As the cluster centers converge to fixed coordinates, the distance between each individual sample and each cluster centroid is calculated as a measure of the similarity of the sample to each cluster (Bezdek, 1974). The membership of each point to its cluster can be expressed as a distance ratio (Burrough et al., 1997; Lucieer and Lucieer, 2009) by the following expression adapted by Ismail et al. (2015) where μik is the membership value of the i-th data point to cluster k dik is the distance between the i-th point and the cluster center k in the Euclidean space built by the RCs n is the number of clusters defined in section 2.4 An evaluation of the certainty of assigning the point i to the cluster k and not to another is performed using the confusion index (CI; Burrough et al., 1997) The CI is expressed as the ratio between the data point memberships with the second-closest cluster and the cluster to which it was allocated by the K-means clustering Where μ(max–1)_i is the membership value of the point i with the second-closest cluster center in the Euclidean space of the RCs while μ(max)_i is the membership value of that same point with the closest cluster center (i.e. to which it was assigned by the K-means clustering algorithm) The CI holds the property to tend to 0 when the membership value for the cluster to which it was allocated is high whereas it tends to 1 when the distance-based allocation of one point to the cluster was not well justified compared to the distance with the second-closest cluster The abiotic clusters represent an unsupervised summary of a combination of environmental factors Unsupervised clusters therefore describe the multidimensional environmental space that the fauna experiences and that may potentially contribute to driving community differences we tested for significant differences between a-priori unsupervised abiotic clusters in terms of community composition metrics derived from photograph annotations the null hypothesis posits that there was no difference of assemblage composition among unsupervised clusters Front view of the high-resolution (0.3 m) terrain point cloud of the underwater wall marking the boundary between a trough and the West Greenland continental shelf (63°51.9′N The depth ranges from –685 to –820 m and is displayed as a color gradient The deep-sea cliff terrain was mapped using a forward-looking MBES mounted onto the ROV Isis (Dive D334) and is displayed as a point cloud using the software CloudCompare Pink dots locate the position of the ROV when taking seabed groundtruthing pictures (Dive D333) used to assess for assemblage differences among abiotic clusters The area of the point cloud that corresponded with the position of each image was spatially identified by projecting a 2.25 m2 square in the 3D space originating from centralized coordinates recorded by the ROV USBL This area was consistent with the average area captured by seabed images (2.33 m2) combined with the sum of the pitch and the inclination of the Scorpio camera were used to orientate the projection of the 2-dimensional footprint of the initial image squares onto the point cloud delimiting the estimated field of view recorded by the camera The terrain points within each field of view did not always display a homogenous affiliation to a particular K-means cluster therefore we applied a majority filter to create a single assignment of each photograph to a majority cluster The deepest part of the wall exhibited a smoother slope of ∼50° at 780 to 818 m depth (Figure 3A), stretching over the whole width of the wall (>200 m). This illustrated a homogeneous horizontal geomorphic transition within the wall (Figure 2) the underwater cliff displayed areas with steeper slopes reaching on average 60° Spatial distribution of terrain derivatives at the finest scale of calculation: (A) Slope (0.9 m) They may be interpreted as local sediment buildups originating from sediment flow processes Spatial distribution of the backscatter intensity retrieved from the MBES nominal values retrieved from CARAIBES (Ifremer) with darker gray depicting lower backscatter intensity Low backscatter intensity indicates a substrate characterized by a combination of smooth and/or soft properties of the “inner” material meter-scale 3-dimensional structures were observed in images of bedrock veneer indicating an unsupervised filtering could clean out real terrain features that may be important for ecological studies The mean and the Gaussian curvatures did not exhibit high loads in the five RCs retained by the K-means algorithm Component matrix showing correlation between the Varimax rotated principal components (RC) and the terrain input variables computed at different scales A K-means clustering was performed on 292,557 data points with the five RCs. The Elbow criterion exhibited a decrease in the gradient of the WSS at 4 clusters (Supplementary Figure 5). The C-H criterion confirmed this observation with a maximum at 4 and 6 clusters (Supplementary Figure 5) We favored the least-complex clustering result with a low number of groups (i.e. The four clusters provided by the unsupervised method of data partitioning were mapped in the 3D space as each point of the point cloud was assigned to one of the four clusters (Figure 5). Broadly speaking, clusters T1, T2 and T3 were related to different depth bands, also characterized by differences in slope and backscatter. Cluster T4 exhibited a more discontinuous spatial distribution (Figure 5) suggesting it was related to variability in terrain characteristics at the scale of the point cloud resolution (i.e. Spatial distribution of the four abiotic clusters computed with a K-means clustering based on depth backscatter intensity and terrain derivatives Colors refer to points assigned to one of the habitat clusters (T1–T4) Figure 6. Violin boxplots showing the distribution of terrain variables for each cluster. In the box of the violin boxplot, the middle line is the median, the lower and the upper box boundaries are the first and third quartiles. No statistical outliers are presented. These abiotic variables were used as input variables for the PCA and subsequent K-means clustering that computed the clusters T1–T4. Cluster colors are synchronized with those displayed in Figure 5 Scales of computation are presented in parentheses and units of the abiotic variable is specified in square brackets as well as in the subtitle of the figure panels Confusion between clusters can be monitored using the distribution of the CI values (Table 3). On average, no clear distinction characterized the CI distribution of the different clusters although T4 reached the highest mean CI and T2 held the lowest mean CI followed by T3 (Table 3) Mean and standard deviation of the CI (Confusion Index) computed for each cluster This supports the interpretation of a more heterogeneous habitat in this area Spatial distribution of CI (Confusion Index) values calculated for the four abiotic clusters The color gradient refers to uncertainty of clustering based on the membership of a point to the cluster it was assigned by the K-means algorithm Value of 1/0 (yellow/blue) refers to high/low uncertainty Results of ANOSIM and SIMPER analysis on a Bray-Curtis dissimilarity matrix of transformed morphospecies abundance data Figure 8. Non-metric MDS ordination of Hellinger transformed Bray-Curtis dissimilarity of assemblage compositions across the wall. Factors T1–T4 refer to the K-means majority clusters. Cluster colors are synchronized with those displayed in Figure 5 This study successfully mapped and characterized the fine-scale topography of a vertical wall located in deep Greenland waters (760 m) our study also extracted the backscatter information from the MBES data and used it together with terrain variables calculated in the 3D space to create the first habitat map of a deep-sea vertical wall The subsequent comparison with the faunal communities identified in groundtruthing images indicated that the initial unsupervised classification resulted in habitat categories holding ecological relevance While understanding of these processes requires combination with larger-scale investigations this case study demonstrates current abilities for more extensive mapping combined with a decimeter-scale resolution even if survey time at the study site currently remains a limiting factor in such deep-sea investigation In the same way that downward-looking sonar overlooks fine-scale details of steeply sloping terrains vertical cliffs exhibiting different orientations cannot be evenly mapped using a single ROV heading as was illustrated by the merging of two sections of the cliff here in this study separate point clouds can be acquired from survey lines with different heading orientations The data for each survey section are processed separately and back-rotated after which they can be merged in the overall point cloud Occasionally small offsets build up between the separate sections If the point clouds overlap in relatively homogeneous areas displaying only smaller-scale features these offsets can trigger local inaccuracies in terrain descriptors This can have an influence on the unsupervised habitat mapping especially with clustering algorithms relying on variance partitioning methods The reason for these small point cloud offsets remains uncertain, but we suggest it may arise from artifacts or inaccuracies occurring in the navigation and attitude recordings. Although pre-processing of underwater vehicle navigation (Rigby et al., 2006; Batista et al., 2012; Kwasnitschka et al., 2013) and attitude (Hugues Clarke, 2003) allows to optimize the quality of fine-scale terrain reconstruction the latter is intrinsically dependent on the data quality primarily acquired by motion sensors (i.e. lower recording time step than acoustic soundings and temporal synchronization) Accuracy and precision of underwater vehicle positioning in the deep sea remains nevertheless a major technological challenge that may particularly affect high-resolution terrain reconstruction efforts Noisy USBL navigation data of underwater vehicles can create abrupt artifacts in the MBES bathymetry that may lead to inaccurate fine-scale terrain models we merged the overall accuracy of the USBL navigation with the precision of the DVL records to achieve the optimal navigation dataset to avoid terrain artifacts in a vertical reconstruction this was a necessary step in the workflow of acoustic data processing since the decisions to remove soundings at the manual cleaning stage remain difficult to make Meter-scale features such as outcrops could easily be erased from the point cloud which could lead to a reduction of the terrain complexity navigational uncertainty can remain between separate ROV dives (e.g. and can cause difficulties in linking groundtruthing data to acoustic datasets such biogenic structures themselves create habitat for other species and hence can be considered part of the initial habitat characterization particularly if it has to be based on remote sensing data with little or no groundtruthing data available for quantitative validation community composition differences were not strong nor was any particular species predominantly contributing to assemblage dissimilarity glomerata showed higher abundances in the high-roughness cluster T4 while on the other hand it still co-occurred with A which was more sighted on smoother terrain with low backscatter (T1) these results suggest assemblage differences explained by a few rarer species occurring at particular terrain features whereas the small extent of the study area may have contributed to assemblage similarity as the sessile communities tended to overlap in space A more extensive characterization of the wall communities is required to confirm these patterns whereas species distribution models may be useful to investigate specific spatial distributions independently from the rest of the community which is especially useful during exploration activities or in poorly characterized environments such as in deep waters groundtruth sampling will help to build a refined habitat map by validating the level of (dis)similarity and ecological relevance between habitats delineated by the first seafloor classification This study demonstrated our ability to capture fine-scale seabed characteristics of vertical habitats in the deep sea using forward-looking acoustic survey methods (bathymetry and backscatter) on underwater platforms Unsupervised habitat mapping based on K-means clustering was applied to delineate similarities across the vertical seabed and to summarize the multidimensionality of the benthic substrate variables The latter revealed terrain differences linked with geomorphological features >200 and >25 m in size Groundtruthing photographs partitioned among the abiotic clusters indicated dissimilarities of benthic community composition these differences remained attenuated therefore calling for a more representative sampling and characterization of the faunal assemblages based on a better sampling scheme this study stresses the need for an investigation into alternative clustering approaches that may describe the environmental conditions in a more adequate way the extraction of the backscatter intensity at vertical underwater terrain remaining at its infancy it demonstrates the need for further development to ensure accurate acquisition of this proxy of the substrate properties this investigation demonstrates the need and possibilities of this method for multidisciplinary investigations of vertical features at fine scales in geology especially when adding the backscatter information Meter-scale unsupervised terrain mapping remains a cost-effective and objective tool to inform relevant and representative field sampling strategies in remote environments where no a priori knowledge is available acquisition of robust groundtruthing data remains necessary to fully characterize the faunal communities especially in the undersampled deep-sea benthic habitat of Greenland waters uncertainties in ROV positioning and attitude recording are still some of the major challenges when working in this type of environment and with high-resolution terrain characterization While we proposed post-processing methods that help to limit error propagation positional errors can still affect the habitat mapping outcomes and possibly constrain the spatial accuracy when linking abiotic and biotic datasets Further investigations and development in vehicle navigation are needed to improve high-resolution habitat mapping in complex deep-sea environments The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s. Original data (terrain and biotic variables) are provided https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.931687 LV performed abiotic data analyses and drafted the manuscript All authors contributed to editing the final manuscript This work was initially part of a thesis supported by the International Master of Science in Marine Biological Resources (IMBRSea; LV) IMBRSea is a Joint Master’s Degree under Erasmus Mundus coordinated by Ghent University (FPA 574482-EPP-1-2016-1-BE-EPPKA1-JMD-MOB) Funding for DY081 was from the European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant 678371 ICY-LAB) VH was supported by the NERC National Capability Program CLASS (Grant No Paper publication costs were supported by NERC National Capability funding The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest We acknowledge the Captain and the crew of the RRS Discovery as well as the ROV Isis technical team of 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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited in accordance with accepted academic practice distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms *Correspondence: Loïc Van Audenhaege, bG9pYy52YW5hdWRlbmhhZWdlQGdtYWlsLmNvbQ== Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish Sea Cliff Mayor Elena Villafane on Glen Cove and Lafayette Avenues in her village in 2023 The Nassau County Police Department responded to a tense scene at Sea Cliff Village Hall earlier this week after Robert Ehrlich founder of the company that makes the Pirate's Booty snack Ehrlich entered Sea Cliff Village Hall on Monday around 9:45 a.m along with three other men and claimed he had "authority" as the village's new mayor the village said in statement posted to Facebook Ehrlich told village staff they were fired and could reapply for their jobs who is running for reelection in an uncontested race on Tuesday told Newsday that Ehrlich had invoked the state's Citizen Empowerment Act That law outlines a process in which voters can petition for their municipality to be absorbed by another entity The village on the North Shore of Oyster Bay has a population of about 5,000 residents Villafane said in an interview with Newsday on Friday that she asked Ehrlich to view his petitions to assess the form's validity Ehrlich declined and behaved in a "very aggressive" way toward staff "When informed that this claim was invalid and unsupported by law he was asked to leave Village Hall at which point Ehrlich and his associates became increasingly confrontational," the village's statement read The statement continued: "While Village staff remained calm and professional throughout the incident Ehrlich and his associates raised their voices and engaged in direct harassment of Village personnel creating a hostile and disruptive environment that required police intervention." A Nassau County Police Department spokesman said police responded to the scene around 9:45 a.m Villafane said: “If he really had a true intention in regard to village government The state's Citizen Empowerment Act “provides a process for voters to petition for a public vote on consolidating their local governments,” according to state documents The petitioner must collect signatures representing 10% of voters in any given municipality Backers of the 2009 measure hailed it as a way to combine many high-tax special districts, including those that provide garbage, water and fire protection services. In 2012, a referendum to dissolve Baldwin's Sanitary District 2 failed by a vote of 4,597-1,682 Ehrlich said he had collected more than 1,900 signatures on the petition but refused to share a copy of it with Newsday citing concerns over the safety of the signers Ehrlich said he is mounting a write-in campaign for mayor on Tuesday and wants a group that he formed — the "Incorporated Village of Sea Cliff Residents" — to absorb the village In 2004, Ehrlich sued the village in federal court over the permitting process for his restaurant, the Sea Cliff Sushi Co., Newsday previously reported. A judge dismissed that case in 2007, Newsday reported and ordered Ehrlich to pay $900,000 to the village and several other former officials to cover attorney fees Get more on these and other NewsdayTV stories Get important news about your town as it happens Get the top stories from across our network Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from daily updates Robert Ehrlich walked into Sea Cliff Village Hall like he owned the place falsely declaring himself mayor and trying to fire the entire staff the Pirate's Booty founder lost the Sea Cliff when Ehrlich and three associates—Jeff Knox and an unidentified man—marched into Village Hall and announced that he was now in charge according to a statement from the Village of Sea Cliff (which is just under 2 square miles) who also owns a snack company called Vegan Rob's and manages a bar in the East Village reportedly demanded access to office space and told every village employee they were fired though he generously offered them the chance to reapply for their jobs When officials informed him that his hostile takeover attempt was completely illegal Police were eventually called in to de-escalate the situation before order was restored The dramatic showdown came just days before the Sea Cliff mayoral election crushed her opponent in a landslide victory Villafane won with 1,064 votes to just 62 for her challenger A supporter at her victory celebration summed it up: "This election result affirms that the community values honest leadership officials reassured residents that nothing has changed—Sea Cliff continues to operate under its legally elected leadership The Sea Cliff Board of Trustees praised Village Hall staff for keeping their cool during what they described as "intense and outlandish behavior." let me be clear: I will not tolerate any further attempts to undermine the governance of this village," she said in a statement Wednesday Sea Cliff Mayor Elena Villafane handily retained her seat in the village's election after the founder of Pirate's Booty allegedly staged an attempted coup of the local government just days before voters headed to the ballot box the only mayoral candidate on the Sea Cliff ballot Tuesday received 1,064 votes to win a new two-year term The results capped a turbulent stretch that saw the Nassau County Police Department respond to a tense scene at Sea Cliff Village Hall last week after Ehrlich entered the building with three other men and claimed he had authority as mayor said the election "was about our shared vision for Sea Cliff — a vision of responsible leadership and a community that works together to achieve great things." let me be clear: I will not tolerate any further attempts to undermine the governance of this village," Villafane said "Our civil servants work tirelessly to serve our community and any efforts to disrupt or interfere with their work will be addressed through all appropriate and lawful means." Nassau County police responded to Village Hall on March 10 when village officials said Ehrlich had come to the office and claimed he had "authority" as the village's new mayor enacted in 2009 to encourage government consolidation allows citizens to petition for a referendum asking municipalities to merge Ehrlich said he established a separate government entity "Incorporated Village of Sea Cliff Residents," to absorb the Village of Sea Cliff Village officials said Ehrlich claimed to have a petition but did not show them a copy He also declined to furnish a copy to Newsday Ehrlich said he had more than 1,950 signatures of registered Sea Cliff voters on the petition When asked if he planned to follow the procedures of the Citizens' Empowerment Act "We're interpreting the law the way we want to interpret it." Ehrlich said he didn't believe in the village's election process but did not provide specific evidence and they can say any number they want," he said He said he considers himself the mayor of Sea Cliff and added that he is considering making a podcast "I have a lot of support in this town referring to the number of votes he received "It's nothing to be celebrating — their victory They lost a lot in 10 days in terms of the vision of Sea Cliff." TrendingResidentialSan FranciscoASea Cliff home trades at $26M asking price all for charityVC George Sarlo’s house ranks as second-priciest SF sale this year A Sea Cliff home has traded at its $26 million asking price — a rarity at the uppermost tier of the market where sales millions below the asking price are common and a sign of regained strength for the San Francisco luxury market With four bedrooms and five bathrooms over nearly 7,900 square feet overlooking the Pacific Ocean the Sea Cliff property’s sale works out to about $3,300 per square foot Owner and early tech VC George Sarlo had previously stated that all proceeds of 290 Sea Cliff Avenue would benefit his family’s foundation which writes grants for mostly Bay Area nonprofits that concentrate on youth mental health youth political organizing and breaking the cycle of trauma which Sarlo bought in 1993 for $2.2 million was transferred into the foundation’s name just before it came to market SIGN UPTania Toubba and Debi DiCello of Sotheby’s International Realty listed 290 Sea Cliff at the end of May and it was in contract about one month later Toubba and DiCello declined to comment on the sale Compass agents Yulia Mitchell and Michael Plotkowski represented the buyer They did not reply to a request for comment The luxury market is on an upswing this year and recently released Compass data backs that up San Francisco trails only San Mateo County for sales above $10 million so far this year San Mateo saw 32 sales above that price point by July 15 while San Francisco had 12 and Santa Clara County 11 The “Stanford Circle,” which includes upscale communities Atherton nearly doubled its second-quarter number of $10 million-plus sales compared to last year San Francisco and Santa Clara counties saw year-over-year increases of 54 percent and 63 percent June 2024 was the highest single month for $5 million-plus home sales since May 2022 TrendingResidentialSan FranciscoA“Helloooo”: Robin Williams’ former Sea Cliff home sells for $18.1M after price cutBids rolled in after price on quirky oceanfront dropped to $20M Listen to this article00:001xThe Sea Cliff home where Robin Williams lived for decades with his then-wife Marsha Garces Williams and their children has sold for $18.1 million after more than a year on the market The nearly 11,000-square-foot, six-bedroom home first came to market in October 2023 with an asking price of $25 million The 1926 Mediterranean-style house sits on a corner lot with nearly half an acre. Close to a year after it listed, the price on 540 El Camino Del Mar dropped to $20 million in September, went into contract in December and sold on Jan. 23. If the sale had closed in 2024, it would have been among the top ten sales in the city last year Steven Mavromihalis of Compass had the listing from the jump that the home received multiple offers once the price fell who manages the family office division at Engel and Volkers’ San Francisco office While Landsness could not comment on the sale he said his clients had been looking for “the right property” for years and found it after the price dropped “It didn’t even make sense to tour it until the price came down,” he said This is actually the second time that Landsness has represented the buyer of a former Williams estate along with fellow Engel and Volkers’ agent Will Densberger represented the French winemaking Tesserson family when they bought Williams’ Napa estate Villa Sorriso adding that in both cases the buyers “respected the memory of Robin Williams his second wife — a producer on the 1993 hit film set in San Francisco Doubtfire” — bought the Sea Cliff home for $3.2 million in 1991 The couple divorced in 2010 and Garces Williams was granted the house his three children—two of whom he had with Garces Williams—inherited the Villa Sorriso property The home features a secret bar behind a wall in the media room hidden passageways between the children’s bedrooms and metal iguana and turtle sculptures that appear to be climbing the sides of the oceanfront villa with “some of the highest profile and best known tech entrepreneurs” living in the area which is walking distance to retail and restaurants and “the best public golf courses in the country.”  “Often people who buy my listings in Sea Cliff already live there,” he said “They can afford to live anywhere they want and they choose it because they know their neighbors The Sea Cliff home was the second-largest contract in the neighborhood in 2024. Venture capitalist George Sarlo sold his Seacliff home for its $26 million asking price in July with the proceeds going to his family foundation