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Grit grinds in gears as city tries to save dunes

Support erodes in Indian Rocks Beach as residents find fault with regulations that will let wild things flourish.

By SHEILA MULLANE ESTRADA
Published March 2, 2005

INDIAN ROCKS BEACH - This small, self-described "progressive" coastal community has stepped into yet another controversy - a proposed mandatory, 50-foot dune preservation zone proposed for the city's 2-mile-long beach front.

Even those residents who support protecting dunes really, really don't like being forced to let sandspurs grow on their beach, which the dune preservation report acknowledges are "normally considered a nuisance plant."

Beach-front residents have other objections, too.

They don't want rising sand dunes covered with potentially tall vegetation to block their water views.

They wonder where they will be able to put their beach chairs, volleyball nets and small boats - all prohibited activities in the proposed dune zone.

They are concerned that leaving seaweed and other plant debris on the beach as a source of nutrients for dune plant and wildlife will result in noxious odors and increased rat and snake populations.

And they particularly don't like the possibility that their neighbors could become, in effect, "beach police" tasked with reporting violations of the dune preservation regulations.

One proposed regulation calls for the training of a "cadre of volunteers" to help the city identify "areas in the dune system that have been damaged due to foot traffic, excessive usage or illegal usage, and to identify necessary remedial action."

Another regulation prohibits more than two fishing poles for individuals fishing from the beach front.

And when City Manager John Coffey stopped issuing raking permits recently because raking in front of seawalls would be banned under the proposed ordinance, a number of residents complained loudly at a commission meeting. The city is again issuing raking permits.

The goal of the proposed plan is to establish an area of protected dunes that would "reduce risk" to people and property and improve the "sustainability" of the beach for both residents and visitors.

According to a city report, "beaches and dunes serve as buffers against threatening waves and storm surges while serving as a home and/or nesting area for birds and sea turtles."

Proposed regulations governing the kinds of plants that must be allowed to grow on the beach are contained in this inch-thick report that was more than a year in the making and largely written by fellow residents.

The city's Beach Management Plan Ad Hoc Committee, recruited by city officials in 2001 to help establish a vigorous dune system, said dunes would not only help protect beach-front properties during high, storm-driven tides, but would better position the city to qualify for future federal and state beach renourishment funding.

The beach at Indian Rocks has been renourished three times with nearly 2-million cubic yards of sand since 1969 and is scheduled for additional renourishment this year.

Development and sea walls now sit on top of the beach's original dune system. New dunes have formed along part of the city's coastline but do not rise much more than a few feet. Some areas, particularly where residents rake their own beach front, are almost flat.

The Ad Hoc committee has held 32 public meetings and more than 1,000 hours of discussion with residents, city, county and state officials and scientific experts. Their inch-thick findings, first presented last year, and subsequently revised by the city's planning and zoning board and the City Commission, are now part of a formal ordinance.

The plan has drawn residents by the hundreds to City Hall in recent weeks in protest. One meeting lasted more than nine hours as residents voiced objections to the current plan. Many said they agree with many of the goals of the report, but preferred voluntary guidelines for dune preservation rather than an official ordinance that, potentially, could carry criminal penalties for violators.

This strong opposition to the plan now has the City Commission rethinking the details. Sometime this spring, the commission plans to hold a special workshop to address residents' concerns.

The proposed regulations would put a 50-foot-wide swath of the city's 2-mile-long beach front virtually off-limits to beachgoers. The city's beach now averages about 150 feet in depth from the sea walls to the water line. In the past, however, most of the beach - and much of the sea walls - were washed away during strong hurricanes, and particularly after Elena in 1985.

The goal of the dune regulations would be to create a dune system down the entire length of the city's beach that would rise up to 5 or more feet in height. Private homes and smaller residential developments would be allowed a 4-foot-wide access route to the waterfront for every 50 feet of frontage. Most condominiums, hotels and other large properties would be required to build dune walkovers.

It appears now that coastal sandspurs, which technically are already protected by state law, may be dropped from the city's list of regulated plants, according to Director of Development Pete Pensa.

That list also includes sea grapes, which can grow to heights of 20 feet. Other favored plants that help anchor and secure dunes include red and white morning glories, dune sunflowers, seashore elder, sea oats and panic grass. Nonnative plants would be removed from the beach.

The city has posted the proposed Dune Preservation Zone plan on its Web site: www.indian-rocks-beach.org

[Last modified March 2, 2005, 00:46:17]