St. Lucie County needs to raise more than $17 million in the next two years to pay for two major sand restoration projects on South Hutchinson Island beaches.
Erosion at South Beach in Fort Pierce is expected to get so bad this winter, Coastal Management Services Director Glenn Henderson said, that he anticipates spending more than $2.5 million to truck sand onto the beach.
Meanwhile, the county has until July 2021 to collect $14.8 million for a sand restoration project from Normandy Beach to the Martin County line, Henderson said.
That would be the local share of the $22 million cost to dump more than 400,000 cubic yards of sand on the beaches, Henderson said.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would cover the rest of the tab.
“We are facing some incredible funding challenges,” Henderson told the county commissioners on March 12. “What that will mean is the county will have to decide whether the local government, along with help from our local citizens, is prepared to step in to help fill that gap.”
County commissioners are considering whether to raise property taxes and/or impose assessments to pay for the sand restoration project for the 3-mile stretch from Normandy Beach to the Martin County line.
“We’re going to have to say at this point, we’re taking it on,” Commissioner Frannie Hutchinson said during the March 12 meeting. “The erosion is not stopping – bottom line.”
The commissioners are considering spreading the costs to all county residents, asking South Hutchinson Island property owners to shoulder the costs, or some combination of the two.
There are more than 20 condominiums, three manufactured home communities and dozens of businesses on South Hutchinson Island between Normandy Beach and the Martin County line.
Henderson said the county’s beach plan includes working with the condo associations to conduct “the polling that needs to take place to determine the level of support that we might be able to get from them for a special millage that might need to be considered.”
The commissioners agreed on March 12 to hire a consultant to help them figure out the most equitable way to split the costs for the South Hutchinson Island beach restoration project.
The commissioners also agreed to ask beachfront condo associations and property owners to provide more public beach access paths because that’s a criterion for increasing federal funding.
In addition, the commissioners agreed to undertake an economic impact study of the beaches to prove their value and justify federal and state funding requests.
Henderson also advised the commissioners to establish an emergency beach-repair fund because problems frequently pop up along the shoreline.
Commission Chairwoman Linda Bartz said she expects the commissioners to decide during their July budget workshops how to raise the money for the beach restoration projects.
“There is nothing that should be off the table,” Bartz said in an interview after the March 12 meeting.
Property owners between Normandy Beach and the Martin County line agreed to a special assessment in 2012 to help pay for a beach restoration project, Henderson said.
“We may be looking at something similar to that,” Henderson said after the March 12 meeting. “You’ve got the county, you’ve got the Erosion District, and then you’ve got all the property owners. Well, who pays how much? Those are the questions that have to be answered.”
