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| The wall that is the Middle Finger to the State of Texas' Beach and Dune Rules. |
It's simple. A Developer or Property Owner is not allowed to construct a retaining wall within 200' landward of the established line of vegetation. As of today it is very apparent that the Sea Breeze Estates and the Cameron County Dune Protection Committee are determined to defy Texas State and Texas General Land Office rules and allow the construction of such a retaining wall. Below are the actual comments from the Texas GLO to Sea Breeze Estates.
As you can see from the pictures below, the wall is already well under way in its construction with the footing being poured and completed and the rebar extensions sticking up ready for the upper portion of the wall. The seaward facing part of the retaining wall is located at or just behind the apparent line of vegetation in that area and is definitely not within the GLO guidelines.
In meetings of the Cameron County Dune Protection Committee, of whom one of the Realtors and Developers of the Sea Breeze Estates is a member, that I have personally attended it had been discussed that in order to deal with the GLO's denial of the retaining walls, they should be disguised as a foundation for the perimeter fence of the project. There may very well be a fence going up on top of this but this is definitely a retaining wall going up that has not been permitted by the agency that is responsible for coastal development on the Texas Coast.
"Why is a retaining wall bad?" you may ask. It has more to do with its proximity to the waterline and the potential it will have to negatively accelerate erosion both to the public beach seaward of it but also to the properties on either side of it. It also flies in the face of Texas' desire to push back building lines in order to reduce the public tax payer's exposure to bailing out irresponsible developers like this when they build too close to the water line and find themselves in danger of losing their investment. Of course, Cameron County's Dune Protection Committee has already been moving in the opposite direction on this as well.
Yes, the Cameron County Dune Protection Committee is trying to actually relax their building setback line on a beach that is eroding at about 10' per year according to the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi's New GeoHazard Map. (Pic Below)
If the Texas General Land Office does not take the reigns now on these infractions and get this development and the Cameron County Dune Protection Committee back in line then they risk losing control of the largest undeveloped stretch of barrier island in the United States.
Below the response from the GLO to the Cameron County Attorney at the time of inquiry as to what repercussions Cameron County could face if ever found in violation of the Cameron County Beach And Dune Plan, the State's Beach & Dune Rules, the Dune Protection Act or the Open Beaches Act. It states that Cameron County could lose its certification of its Beach and Dune Plan, lose the ability to collect Beach User Fees ant its Beach Parks and lose eligibility of funding from Texas' Coastal Erosion Protection and Response Act. These should all be on the table as it is the only thing that will sway the Cameron County Commissioners Court in seeing the ill-advised recommendations it has received from its Dune Protection Committee.
The Texas General Land Office has actually sent out a cease work order on unpermitted construction to the Developers with this wall being the response. The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter has made the GLO aware of this and they are investigating.
the problem with the GLO is that they threaten, but they never really give facts, or answers to your questions. their attitude seems to be "if we stall long enough, maybe this developer will go away". they need some reasonable firm rules. the line of vegetation is very variable in the area that your photo depicts. so, do landowners with more dunes get to encroach furhter onto the beach than those without? the city of south padre island has worked hard to establish a "continuous dune line". Instead of using the line of vegetation, they should use mean high tide. the line of vegetation will move more rapidly and significantly than the mean high tide line in events such as hurricanes. if you take the area around suntide iii for example, the seawall is about 300' away from the mean high tide line. that is plenty. i wouldn't go much less than that though. i don't know what the distance is for this development, but based on the better beach areas the town, 250-300 feet should be sufficient. i also disagree with the 10 feet per year beach erosion. the beach is eroding, but 10 feet per year is not accurate. most of that area was subdivided in the 1950's. some of those lots are now in the water, but in 60 years, the beach has not eroded 600 feet. sometimes you have to push back on the glo to keep 'em honest.
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