Island Shoreline Task Force heeds residents uproar
Agenda item causes backlash
BY RAUL GARCIA | South Padre Island Post
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND—- One-by-one Island residents gave the Island Shoreline Task Force a peice of their mind on where they stand with the city’s improvement plans for Sapphire Beach Access 23.
The statements they gave during public comment at the recent Shoreline Task Force meeting got loud at times, were informative as some residents used their phone to give perspective and others fired off with a complete power point presentation explaining why beach access 23 should not be given an upgrade of restrooms and eight vehicle parking lot.
“All that parking area is going to get rid of our natural sand dunes,” said Rodolfo Carrillo, an Island resident. “Its a beautiful access now. I dont know why you would want to destroy that. The improvements is just going to create more traffic.”
The sentiment of other nearby homeowners to beach access 23 agreed that any improvement to the beach access would not be good for the the single family neighborhood located on the North end of the city.
The Shoreline Task Force’s first order of business at Tuesday’s September 8, meeting was to rank three projects to recommend to the city council to approve to propose for matching funds from the Texas General Land Office for three projects.
One project is to improve beach access 23 with a parking lot and restrooms. The second is for new life guard towers and the third to improve Sea Island the Beach Access 5.
Board members voted unanimously to recommend improments to Sea Island Beach Access 5, new life guard towers and improvements to Sapphire Beach Access 23 improvements the order of most important for city council to decide which propose for funding to the GLO.
Island residents are opposed to the improvement plan for access 23, as task force members agreed the improvement is a way to add more parking for beachgoers.
There are no parking areas near beach acess 23 and the closest restroom is located at beach acess 11.
Island residents all agreed any improvement or added additional parking spaces would bring more visitors near their homes.
“We’re trying to spread people out,” said Rob Nixon, Island Task Force commette member. “I’m in support of the parking lot.”
Last year the Island applied for four grants and was awarded one from the GLO, according to Island officials.
Board member Stormy Wall had a good idea about how he was going to decide on the ranking order of the agenda items for improvement funding requests going into the meeting, he said.
“I understand what your saying and I have heard a lot of logical arguments against the restrooms facility. And I know its a diffrent area down there. Its a single family area and not a whole lot of nightly rentals down there. I’m not in favor of putting a permanent restroom down there because of the numerous objections we’ve heard. It makes a lot of sense.”
The proposal of projects will be up for approval at the next city meeting scheduled September 16, at 5:30 p.m. at Cunningham City Hall.
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This is mostly well-written, except for the statement “Island Residents are opposed…” I am an Island resident, and just because I was not at the meeting doesn’t mean that I don’t have an opposing view. I also live close to a public beach access, and it would have been nice to keep the riffraff away from MY access as well, but that is not the way it works. It is not private because this is Texas and we all get to use the beach. We need a restroom on that end of the beach — let’s call NIMBY when we see it.
The city has imposed a rule of no nightly rentals in this area. It is single family housing. Thus the residents still pay high taxes but do not have any rental income to offset it. As a result it is a relatively quiet neighborhood with low density housing. There is no need to destroy this natural beach access and in turn change our neighborhood. It is inconsistent with the S. Padre Island City Plan. We need to designate it as a natural access and preserve its future. Come support us at the meeting.