30-Year Erosion Line Ruling May Have Major Impacts on County

A recent ruling on density on St. Joseph Peninsula may factor into the upcoming 30-year erosion line decision by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

Issues like density out on the Peninsula are just some of the factors that DEP is considering before making their final determination of the soon-to-be set 30-year erosion line for Gulf County, a decision that will have major impact on the county as a whole and on hundreds of individual property owners along the coast.

The packed county commission special meeting concerning the density case, public outcry against the density increase, contractors' push for the density increase, the commission vote itself, all show the fine line the county is trying to straddle over development on Cape San Blas-St. Joseph Peninsula and DEP, whose rulings drastically affect life in the southern part of the county.

Some background on the issue helps explain part of the problem.

At the Feb. 26 Gulf County Commission meeting, a request was made by a developer to subdivide lots in a St. Joseph Peninsula development by changing the county's comprehensive plan, in order to try to promote sales of lots in the project.

The project was the Ovation subdivision on SR/CR 30E on the Peninsula. The land for the project was acquired in 2004 by the Atlanta-based Ashwood Development Company. However, since the downturn of the real estate market that began in mid-2005, lots have not sold well in the development, and the developer wanted a density change in order to split the remaining lots and build zero-lot houses where single family homes had been permitted.

At the Feb. 26 county commission meeting, William Harrison, attorney for Ashwood, asked for changes in the county's comprehensive land plan in order to get the density changes. The requested changes could have almost doubled the number of houses in the development from the originally approved 120 single-family homes.

Primary objections cited to the increased density in the development included: *increased problems for an already overtaxed local volunteer fire department; *non-notification to property owners in and around the development of the proposed changes; *radical changes to the original development plans, to which property owners had not agreed; *violation of the county comprehensive land use plan, which could open the door for more requests to change the plan; *punitive action against the county by the state Department of Community Affairs, which regulates the comprehensive plan; *judgment against the county by the state Department of Environmental Protection regarding the upcoming decision to move the 30-year erosion line on the Peninsula; and *setting a dangerous precedent for uncontrolled growth in south Gulf County.

At the following Feb. 28 special meeting, County Commissioner Bill Williams said, for him, the biggest issue was one that no one had mentioned, that of the 30-year erosion line, which is currently being negotiated by the county and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP).

"Our defense [in asking FDEP to negotiate the 30-year erosion line] is that we've been good stewards of the Cape," Williams said, pointing out that if the county began changing its comprehensive plan to allow greater density in the already controversial Cape area, the FDEP might rule unfavorably for the county in setting the 30-year erosion line.

At the end of the Feb. 28 meeting, commissioners voted 4-1 to deny the density increase to the Ovation developer.

Voting to deny the request were Commissioners Bill Williams, Nathan Peters, Jerry Barnes and Carmen McLemore. Voting for the density change was commission chair Billy Traylor.

As Williams pointed out, very few Gulf County residents were really looking at the impact DEP's ruling on the 30-year erosion line will have on Gulf County.

The 30-year erosion line is the projection set by DEP for probable erosion of coastal areas over a 30-year period. The erosion line works in conjunction with the coastal construction control line, and together both demarcations control what land is deemed buildable or unbuildable in coastal areas.

In a recent telephone interview with Williams and Don Butler, Gulf County administrator, Butler said the county had identified all the properties on Cape San Blas and the Peninsula that would be affected by the proposed 30-year erosion line revisions.

The total, Butler said, was estimated by the county at $144 million in lost property value, a cut of up to 80 percent of the value of the properties.

According to the county's figures, 296 properties would be severely impacted, 49 properties moderately impacted, and 243 properties would be mildly impacted from the new guidelines.

DEP, however, maintains that only 36 properties would be highly affected, and only 22 would be moderately impacted.

The extreme gap between the county and DEP's figures comes from different methods of calculating the impact, Butler explained. "Our method is common sense. DEP will not tell us how they got their figures," he said.

Butler said that under the Coastal High Hazard Study Commission (CHHSC), established by then-governor Jeb Bush in 2005, the state had to have, by May 2006, a determination of the economic damage to the state by the proposed new erosion control line.

So far many of those findings, including the economic determination, have not been completed, Butler said.

So Gulf County conducted its own assessment, according to Butler, and that is what they are using to try to convince DEP that the new ruling would be economically devastating to Gulf County.

Butler also said there is a discrepancy between the county and DEP over the definition of "coastal high hazard area," as defined by Florida state statutes.

Things came to a head early last year when DEP planned to revise and move the 30-year erosion control line and prohibit subdivision of lots in the affected area unless the property had been platted by October 1985. The move almost went undetected, but resulted in a March 2007 meeting involving property owners from St. Joseph Peninsula and Cape San Blas, county officials, and representatives of DEP, who were overwhelmed by the public outcry. At issue was the selection of the October 1985 date for cutoff for subdivision of lots.

At the meeting DEP officials admitted that they had discovered, much to their amazement, that Gulf County was unique in the state in that almost all of the properties on the Cape and Peninsula had been platted well after the cutoff date and that this was a problem.

This led to the negotiations still ongoing between the county and DEP, negotiations which involve the discrepancy of numbers of affected parcels and final demarcation of the 39-year erosion control line.

"If the county commission had not called DEP's bluff last March, the 30-year erosion control line would have already been set," Butler said, explaining that once the line is moved and officially set, no lots on affected parcels can be subdivided. "This would have been done had we not jumped on it."

Williams has been meeting for months, as the county's representative, with state officials and the secretary of DEP, Michael Sole.

"I've presented the county's case to the state. It's a difference of interpretation on the impacts of this ruling," Williams said. "We are being penalized because most of the county's development happened post-1985."

Since 24 percent of the county's tax base comes from that coastal area, the county is looking for exemptions on the current rules, Williams added.

If the ruling on the erosion control line is passed and is set at the parameters that are proposed, then, according to the county's way of reckoning, almost 350 properties would be deemed either severely limited for building or unbuildable.

"If they are ruled unbuildable, the property owners must file for just compensation from the state if they want to get any of their money out of the land," Williams said. "It will put property owners into an actual ‘state-taking' pattern."

With the "current environment of no sales," people cannot buy or sell real estate, Williams said, adding that he felt Sole's response so far has been "receptive."

"With the Ovation decision, the county commission proved that Gulf County was committed to identifying impacts to the Cape beyond the life expectancy of the beach renourishment," Williams said.

"The current coastal construction control line (CCCL) is working, so we are supporting construction control on the Cape. The 30-year line is a dead man's line. This is a property rights issue for homeowners.

"One reason I voted against Ovation [density increase] is that the original plan was one home with three habitable floors. That's incredible - that's controlled growth."

Williams said the county was "continuing to fight" and was still meeting with state officials in hopes of reaching a compromise.

"DEP says they haven't done anything yet, but they have paralyzed our ability to jump-start our economy in our most attainable area of sales."