A question of how — and if — to maintain conservation land on Pensacola Beach has turned into a thorny issue between some beach residents and the Santa Rosa Island Authority.
In February, the SRIA Board approved a motion to leave the conservation area behind three beach residences — 803, 805 and 807 Rio Vista Drive — in its natural state with no one maintaining it, including the SRIA.
Conservation areas are natural sites like dune formations, wetlands and areas of native vegetation that, under statute, cannot not be eliminated or damaged due to their importance in maintaining barriers for coastal homes.
However, the SRIA Board voted 4-2 to rescind its “no maintenance” decision during its Aug. 27 meeting, to the dismay of some residents and glee of others.
At a June 11 Committee Meeting leading up to the vote, Tim Day, deputy director of Escambia County Natural Resources Management Department, presented the SRIA Board with the results of a Wetland Assessment Report.
Day contracted Wetland Sciences Inc. to prepare the report, which identified “boundaries wetlands,” non-wetland uplands, as well as invasive species present in the area.
The decline of the area’s vegetation started back in the 1980s when Public Works staff began to mow the area, then it progressed after it was sodded over in the 1990s, according to Day.
“To be right upfront, just allowing it to naturally regrow, in my opinion, is not an option,” explained Day. “It is too full of turf grasses and other non-native species to be effective. What you can end up with is not a very biologically-productive area that is visually a weedy mess and it’s going to continue to cause nuisance issues for (the SRIA), unlike a healthy wetland.”
Day recommended letting Public Works resume mowing the area and offered two restoration solutions: use either a water-approved chemical to burn down the existing vegetation, or scrape it, and then plant the appropriate wetland vegetation; or leaving the vegetation barren.
Day reiterated in August that the invasive species’ presence inside the natural vegetation would continue to create issues. When asked by board member Jeremy Johnson whether mowing the upland portion of the properties would harm the structural integrity of the shoreline, Day said that mowing the area wouldn’t have a negative impact.
Following the decision, Public Works one again began moving the grass behind the three properties.
Pensacola Beach residents, SRIA debate maintenance
The move didn’t sit well with Pensacola Beach resident Steve Luppert, who has lived on Rio Vista Drive in the Villa Segunda neighborhood for decades, often walking or biking around the shoreline near his home.
In recent years, Luppert has increasingly reported seeing leaseholders treating public land as their personal playgrounds, sometimes storing personal items there or advertising the property as private in signage and rental listings.
During the August meeting, Luppert asked board members why they were only discussing three properties and not the entire area stretching from around 709 Panferio Drive to Baby Beach.
After the mowing began, Luppert sent an email Sept. 8 to a list of recipients including county commissioners, SRIA Board members and the media questioning the action. In the correspondence, he accused Public Works of leaving a “who’s your buddy cut” that benefits three specific leaseholders with direct access to piers and docks built on public land under the direction of the SRIA.
“Meanwhile, many other piers in this area are falling apart, but SRIA’s emphasis was on mowing for a handful of leaseholder privileges rather than managing the public resource,” Luppert said in the email. “This area needs accountability. Maybe we should start calling it Peaden’s Pond or Who’s Your Buddy Beach.”
Peaden requested Day conduct an assessment on the area after walking the area with Luppert and Gene Schmidt, the leaseholder of 803 Rio Vista Drive, at different times.
Peaden told Luppert that he saw the area “from a different perspective,” which led him to contact Day, who hired Wetland Sciences for the study.
“As (Day) reported last time and will probably tell you tonight, there’s invasive species there that’s wreaking havoc on that area so we gotta decide how to treat it,” Peaden told Luppert during the meeting. “So I don’t want to get into who’s advertising what, I want to find the best use of land on this beach and that’s what I intend to do.”
Schmidt, the leaseholder at 803 Rio Vista Drive, told board members after their vote that his request was based on how unkempt the natural state of the area was at the time.
“Since February, the weeds in that area are now this high and there’s no access from either of these three houses to the shore,” Schmidt said. “We would have to walk down the street and down the public access in order to get to the water. … Specifically, we proposed that The Authority implement periodic mowing on the upland areas to ensure accessibility and usability for informal public enjoyment.”
The leaseholder of 805 Rio Vista Drive also spoke in support of the SRIA maintaining the area, pointing to issues like mosquitos, pests and snakes outside that keep their family inside the home more often than not. They noted their family has been maintaining the property and cutting the grass since 1984 and “it’s not destroyed the beach.”
But Pam Speer, another resident who lives a few doors down from the area in discussion, echoed Luppert’s sentiment after the SRIA voted to rescind.
“If they’re going to have their vegetation cut, I want mine cut. I have seven grandchildren, and I would love to have access down to the beach unfettered, but I do have the vegetation … we go around (to) the easements. That’s how we get down,” she said. “Being from Pensacola, I know vegetation holds the sand down. I’m willing to live with that … and follow the rules that have always been, basically, applied.”
Kimberly Sullivan, another Rio Vista Drive resident, also raised concerned about Schmidt’s comments,
“I hear them, but the whole point is to try and preserve the beach. That’s why we have easements,” Sullivan said. “So I’m sorry for the inconvenience for him, but the point is to build up the beach so that we have a beach in future generations.
“If we start messing with this property … it’s going to lead to pooling of the water, which we’re already seeing,” Sullivan continued. “If any of you ever go out to this property at issue after it’s rained, this whole area is flooded. If we continue down the path that Mr. Schmidt is suggesting, it’s going to exacerbate the issue.”
Elizabeth Timothy, who put forward the motion to rescind the February vote, responded to residents’ critiques noting that new information from the report had changed things.
“These things are different than what we knew the first time and the motion that I made is simply saying ‘OK, now that we have a full picture of the issue, let’s reconsider it,’” she said.
SRIA Board member Bruce Childers opposed the motion, arguing that the SRIA isn’t taking away the land from leaseholders and it’s still available for them to use, but that it needs to be “returned” to the public.
Ultimately, Luppert urged the SRIA Board to take a broader view of the situation.
“I look at this as playing plain favoritism with these folks right here, this area right here was abused. It wasn’t maintenance, it was encroachment.” Luppert said. “Yeah it was cut for years, it shouldn’t have been. Now that it’s been brought to your attention, as a board you have a responsibility to correct this.”
He added, “Are you only going to manage those little areas, or are you going to manage the whole area consistently? Because my lease is the same as the people’s across the street. They’re advertising the area as big lots, it’s been advertised as private … it looks like it’s people’s private property down there and it shouldn’t. It’s everybody’s.”
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: A patch of weeds and grass has become a battleground for SRIA and Pensacola Beach residents
Reporting by Edward Bunch III, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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