Bay Isles denies town beach access

The good news: The town learned Nov. 12 that it received a federal permit for its $10,983,192 dump truck sand haul project. That means work can begin after season in April, as scheduled.

The bad news: The Bay Isles Association board voted Monday afternoon not to allow the town to use its Bay Isles Beach Club as one of its access points for dump trucks bringing sand to the eroded shoreline.

Last month, the board heard a presentation from Town Manager Dave Bullock outlining why access to the private beach club at 2111 Gulf of Mexico Drive will make the town’s priciest beach project in the next two years more manageable and save time and, potentially, taxpayer money.

But when Bay Isles President William Levine suggested sending a copy of the town’s presentation to all Bay Isles homeowners at Monday’s meeting, the majority of residents in attendance opposed giving the town access to their beach club.

“A number of people looked at the issue and gave a pretty strong opinion by explaining they don’t want the beach access disturbed,” said Bay Isles Director Michael Fradkin.

Levine said his motivation for sending the information to residents was purely for education about the project and how the beach access would be affected.

To use the facility, the town would have had to remove bushes to make the access road to the beach wider and it would have had to tear up the road.

Terms of an easement that would have been negotiated would have required the town to relandscape bushes and fix the road after the project’s completion.

“We ask you to vote no and end this discussion,” said Fairway Bay resident Peter Kasden. “There’s no point in discussing this any more because no one wants this.”

Fradkin made a motion to reaffirm a past vote denying the town use of the beach club for its beach project; the motion passed 7-1.

 Levine, who is moving to Sarasota after 35 years as a Longboat Key resident, abstained from voting.

The town sought to use the beach club to bring approximately 2,000 dump truck loads of sand to the access over a period of 30 days, depending on weather and traffic. The trucks will bring approximately 30,000 cubic yards of sand to the eroded shoreline to the area from just south of the Islander Club to Seaplace.

Before the board adjourned for the summer earlier this year, it voted twice to reject the town’s offer to make a presentation requesting use of the access.

A plea from Vice Mayor Terry Gans, a Bay Isles resident, to Levine to reconsider allowing the town to make a presentation prompted the board to hear the presentation in October.

In total, the project will dump approximately 200,000 cubic yards of sand on portions of the center shoreline via dump trucks traveling 100 miles each way from an inland sand source in the center of the state.

The loss of the access now means the dump trucks have to enter the shuttered Colony Beach & Tennis Resort site a half-a-mile down the road at 1620 Gulf of Mexico Drive.

Hauling the sand to the beach and then having it moved by four-wheel-drive trucks farther down the road will force a larger portion of the beach to be closed while sand is transported to the north.

And if sea turtle nests are found in the morning, the project will be delayed until the nests can be relocated.

Despite the town’s request, Bay Isles residents worried about how the project would inconvenience them. They also had concerns that some of the vegetation that’s taken years to mature wouldn’t be replaced with the same vegetation.

“If they go through the Colony, our pavilion, bathrooms and barbecues can still be used, and there’s no damage to our club,” said Bay Isles resident Madelyn Spoll. “And we don’t have to worry about how long it will take to repair the club once the beach project is over.”

Bullock explained the town’s case to the board in October.

“...The more we haul up and down the beach, the more we pay for trucking and the higher the cost, and it stretches the project out as well,” he said.