- September 3, 2026
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The Ohana house has new owners, and the seawall that juts into the Gulf is newly renovated. What remains the same, though, is beachgoers are not permitted to walk across the seawall, a point accentuated with the recent installation of a wooden fence on either side of the structure accompanied by vegetation.
Those walking on the beach have four options when they come upon the Ohana seawall. Beachgoers can either wade into the Gulf to avoid it, walk off the beach and use the sidewalk on Gulf of Mexico Drive to get around Ohana, turn around and head back, or climb onto the seawall to continue their walk on the beach and risk a trespass order from police.
Longboat Key Planning, Zoning and Building Director Allen Parsons said whether the beach is public is not a matter of what the plot of land looks like in property appraiser records but by the erosion control line. On the town’s frequently asked questions page of its website, the town writes that the erosion control line “distinguishes between private upland ownership and public or sovereign ownership.”
On most of Longboat Key’s shoreline, the erosion control line is either near the dune vegetation or more inland. On the Gulfside Road portion of the island, though, the erosion control line instead juts out to sea following the border of the Ohana seawall.
“The erosion control line follows where the mean high water line was and then where there’s hardened shoreline,” Parsons said. “So with the Ohana property seawall, the erosion control line follows the hardened shoreline. It follows the seawall.”
Parsons said the construction of a wooden fence perpendicular to the beach was permitted by the town separate from the seawall repair project. The fence does not continue to the seaward edge of the seawall.
“The town has setback requirements for fencing that wouldn’t allow for the fencing to actually go around the seawall perimeter,” Parsons said. “But it is private property.”
The seawall is elevated over the rest of the beach at the moment, but that could change soon as a beach renourishment is scheduled in 2028. Also planned, though not yet permitted by the state, is a groin field that would begin at the southern point of the Ohana seawall.
