I grew up in similar circumstances - in St. Joseph, MI on the shore of Lake Michigan in the 1960s. There were numerous properties on a sand and clay bluff (about the same height) that eroded. The properties were also near a railroad and highway.
At first, a number of ad-hoc private “sea wall” solutions were attempted - mostly involving dumping construction debris and old automobiles (still leaking oil - this was pre EPA) over the side of the bluff in an uncoordinated attempt to preserve individual properties.
Eventually, the railroad and highway department coordinated in building adjoining seawalls - basically, laying in a plastic liner and placing enormous boulders in place to prevent waves from reaching the bluff. (The rocks eventually sunk into the sandy shore over the decades.)
And eventually, it was proven that the erosion had a cause - changes by the US Army Corp of Engineers to prevent sand from driving into the mouth of a river up the coast prevented the normal flow of sand replenishing the beach for miles downstream from a shoreline current. Without the beach, the shoreline approached the bluff, eventually eroding it. The US Army Corp resisted disclosing information about this long enough for the equivalent of a statute-of-limitations to apply. Tens of millions of dollars of property damage over the decades and more wasted in efforts to mitigate a manmade disaster.
The manmade disaster wasn’t just the US Army Corp of Engineers applying a local solution that caused a larger problem - there was plenty of mismanagement in property management, government zoning, etc.
“Global warming” and “ocean rise” might be partially to do with this - but there may also be a “natural current” along the shoreline that’s been disrupted by human constructions further up the coast (up s the current flows.) I’m no climate change denier - but the causes for this are likely to be more mundane and more local.
And frankly, building on top of a soil bluff at the edge of a large body of water is STUPID and SHORT SIGHTED.
That community is doomed - the road next to those apartments is doomed, and so are the properties on the other side of the road over the next few decades.
