Oct. 11--Removing 1.5 miles of Destin from a beach restoration project won't stop the legal fight against restoration, Roland Guidry of Oceania Condominiums says.

"We should not be in the area of critically eroded beach," Guidry told The Log, because Oceania's waterfront hasn't suffered serious erosion. "There's no way anybody would look at the beach and the landscaping and classify us as critically eroded."

Guidry is one of many Destin and Okaloosa Island property owners suing to stop Okaloosa County's $25.9 million plan to rebuild the beaches with a mix of Tourist Development Council bed taxes, state grants and a Municipal Services Benefit Unit, levying a special tax on beachfront owners.

The suit charges that the sand to be used is poor quality; most of the added beach would become public property; the beach in front of the plaintiffs' condos isn't significantly eroded; and the MSBU assessment property owners will pay toward restoration is calculated unfairly. Plaintiffs include Oceania Owners' Association, Emerald Towers Owners' Association, Regency Towers Condominium Owners' Association and several individual owners.

The legal landscape was further complicated by last week's Florida Supreme Court decision that the 2006/7 restoration of two miles of critically eroded beach in Destin and four miles in Walton County did not take away beachfront owners' rights.

Walter Thompson, an attorney for Regency Towers, told The Log that the judges' reasoning implied restoration without critical erosion would violate the rights of the owners which would force the county to pay compensation.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection says most of the beach in the new project is critically eroded, but 1.5 miles in Destin is "undesignated." At its Oct. 7 meeting, the Okaloosa County Commission dropped that area -- from Sand Print Drive east to Henderson Beach State Recreation Area -- from the project.

County Beach Projects Coordinator Jim Trifilio said that could cut 2,500 properties from the project and cut the cost by $6 million.

Guidry said that didn't affect Oceania's position: Their beach is in good shape, but the DEP has arbitrarily drawn the boundary line to include them in the critically eroded zone.

Guidry added that the County Commission could have reduced the MSBU assessment for the remaining owners, or done away with it completely, because removing the 1.5 miles would save so much money. Keeping the assessments the same, he said, might not even be legal, since the hearings on the MSBU had been built around restoring the entire beachfront.

"I think there's enough money with only the TDC earmarked contribution," Guidry said. "They should scrap the MSBU, that's my personal opinion."

Trifilio said that the TDC had received updated information from the property appraiser Tuesday, so restoration opponents' "new calculations might be premature. They don't have the same information we're working with.

"As far as cost, we're still looking at how much revenue will come in from the remaining area."

During State Sen. Don Gaetz's visit to Destin Thursday, Guidry told Gaetz that he'd applied to the DEP to request they revisit the boundary of the critically-eroded area.

"There is time for a reevaluation yet," Guidry said.

"If I had to bet a nickel, I'd bet it would be resolved in court," Gaetz replied.

-----

To see more of The Destin Log or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.destin.com/.

Copyright (c) 2008, Destin Log, Fla.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.