If you've been to beaches in Pinellas County lately, you may have seen how much sand was lost during the 2024 hurricanes.
Now, the county is working on a plan to rebuild some of those beaches. But not everyone will see their part of the beach grow.
County commissioners voted to use $125 million in tourist bed taxes for an emergency renourishment of Sand Key, Treasure Island and Upham Beach. The money had been slated to help build a new stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays.
Kelli Hammer Levy is the county's public works director. She said 147 beachfront property owners have declined to give the county a temporary easement for the life of the project. Levy says those parcels will be renourished only to the edge of the public beach, at the high-water mark.
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“But there are areas where it's like, yes, yes, no, yes, yes, no, a bunch of no's and then a yes,” she said. “And we can't build a beach in such a way that we're placing sand on one parcel that's a yes and then just skipping a no. We just can't construct that way.”
"So what we're going to do in those areas where we cannot fully fill is we're going to come out to the erosion control line and we're going to fill the public beach from the erosion control line west to the Gulf," she added. "And that area behind the erosion control line may be a little lower for some folks, so they'll have a lower area adjacent to their seawall where they could have been fully filled."
Levy said Sand Key in particular will be a problem, because 136 property owners have balked at giving the county a temporary easement. But the further you get from a property's sea walls, the less you should notice.
“If somebody's just walking down the beach far away from the parcels and they're just walking near the water, they will visually see no difference because it's going to be wide everywhere where we've nourished,” she told commissioners. “It's just going to be up near their parcels where they're going to see a dip.
Levy said they will accept temporary easements from the public right up to the time that sand is dumped next to their property.
Commissioners want to ensure the public knows this is separate from the renourishment projects with the Army Corps of Engineers. Those have been stalled over a requirement that all beachfront property owners have to sign over their easement permanently before it can begin.
Previous projects benefited from a 65% federal cost-share through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but without easements from all property owners, the county is no longer eligible for federal funding.
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“Our beaches are our most treasured asset, and we’re working with our beach communities to protect them,” Commission Chair Brian Scott said in a prepared statementt. “A healthy beach offers protection to property and infrastructure against storm surge, and it’s vital to tourism. But our residents should know we won’t be able to continue to do these projects without the full buy-in of our coastal communities.”
Pinellas County will host three public meetings to share information on the upcoming projects:
- July 9: 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Treasure Island City Hall 10451 Gulf Blvd. - July 16: 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Online: Register at Pinellas.gov/signforsand - Aug. 6, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Belleair Beach, 444 Causeway Blvd.
Pinellas CountyMap of the beach renourishment areas
