LOL, i hope naples starts to wash out to sea really soon.

When will we learn, YOU CAN'T FOOL WITH MOTHER NATURE. When they removed the trees from Coconut Island, the island went away. Big suprise.

I wonder what will happen when the City builds Islands in Naples bay. Any idea who they will name them after?

Mother Nature is forceful. She uses the sea currents to comb the barrier island. Rearranging a bit of sand even on a mostly artificial island should be no big deal, but foolish people think it is a good idea to build on the shifting land so we squander money to keep Mother in check only to do it again and again and again. We don't learn the lessons she has tried to teach us.
But the VIEW! Balderdash. View the beach as what it is and not as solid ground. Didn't you pay attention to your nursery rhymes (Three little pigs)???

This is a FOOLISH waste of money. I'm astounded. What an embarrassment that the city is considering this. It would be wiser to give the money to the rich to help them relocate somewhere else that isn't washing away permanently.

Of course I don't think that's fair to give the wealthy relocation dollars, but it's a lot less stupid than fighting an ocean -- forever. Has anyone here read about ocean levels rising? That's a CERTAINTY. If your life or house value depends on the existence of a beach, then YOU HAVE A PROBLEM which one year of TDC funds can't fix.

Better think it through, folks. Trying to force a beach where nature wants it gone is assinine.

The TDC's action recommending a denial of funds for this project is the proper course for the BCC and the City to pursue. Clearly neither our tourist visitors nor the general population have a reasonable ability to access and enjoy the beaches at Hideaway as the methods of access, other than by boat or by sandbar, do not exist and, to the contrary, are denied by the owners of Hideaway.

Until they chose to truly make the beaches axxesible to both tourists and the general public by allowing access during daylight hours, by providing a parking area or areas and by providing access points, they should pay their own way to protect their property.

Contrary to Comm. Henning's statement, the clear purpose of the Hideaway owners request is for continued public funds to help them protect their Hideaways to the exclusion of the public and visitors. To claim otherwise is nothing but a fiction.

Shame on you Mr. Henning in joining in this attempt to raid the public exchequer. Shame on you Hideaway residents - pay your own way which is part of the price of the exlusivity you demand.

For a state that has laws about beach access, there are sure a lot of beaches in Collier County that the public can't access easily.

Le them have their private beaches, but don't give them one dollar of anyone else's money. Or conversely, let the public access them.

If the commissioners give them this money(which they don't deserve), I think it is time for them to start looking for a new job.
This is just another money grab from the elitist. Pay your own way. You complain about the welfare system, but this is just a welfare system for the rich.
This beach is just another "private" beach that you want us to pay for, but don't let us near it. Shame on you.

I wonder what a public fishing pier would look like on Hideaway?

If you compare aerial photos(property appraisers website) between 2001 and 2008 Hideaway clearly has more beach now than then. The bulk of the "beachfront" section abuts Big Marco Pass which is subject too near continual and much stronger tidal forces than a typical beach. It will be tough to hold back mother nature in this area unless you are thinking millions of tons of concrete. Judging from the images it appears Hideaway suffers from too much sand in that a sandbar is continually growing in effect changing their beachfront property into stinky(at low tide) lagoon front property. As far as public beach access, I wouldn't bother unless the ordinary(not wealthy) citizens enjoy a thin beach with no surf, strong currents and the odor of sea bottom on an outgoing tide.

I agree that public funds should not go to a private beach. The folks at the Hideaway Beach Club are jerks about keeping people off of "their" beach. Since it is theirs, let them pay for it. They can bundle the beach renourishment fees with their homeowners' association fees!
The comment from babsmn about the welfare for the elite is right on the money. (Pun intended.) It is amazing how rich folks complain about the USA being a welfare state until it serves their purpose...then amazingly they say it is for the greater good. What crap!

The sand folows the current which flows south now who is the intelligent one who is going to chnge the current? Dahhh!!!! The city council must be all blond if they fall for this one.

I've thought about all the stories on this issue and it would appear to me that; because of the currents and loss of coconut island, the only way to save these homes and roads is a seawall like Isle of capri, naples, miami, etc...

This would probably further erode the sand at the marco pass, but we wouldn't have to keep putting the sand back each year. So either move the homes, or put up a seawall. Stop wasting our money.

The costs for this type of improvement should be born by the residents who benefit. I am sure they can afford it. They might have to sell a yacht or their third home, but it would save this one.

I really don't think these residents will ever allow the general public in thier back yards either. Could you just imagine a coconut island style camp out on thier beach?

ranger:

Seawalls do nothing but deflect the wave energy. Energy can't be reduced. It goes elsewhere, with unpredictable consequences.

The beaches aren't land. They are liquid, a slurry of tide and water and sand and wind that moves back and forth like candle wax on the edge of the Gulf. The Bible tells us not to build on them. The Devil tells us it's okay.

Complications come from poking that living stream. Anything built on it will surely someday fail. It is the way of things, bigger and deeper than any procedure designed by engineers.

When threatened by such collapse, those who defined Nature in order to have a superior view looked back in terror at those they had excluded.

"Please, the rare ground we claimed is tumbling and we will fall withour your help," they cried.

And those long denied any chance to enjoy that rare ground yelled back to the imperiled castle-dwellers . . .

Now let your elected officials know how you want this story to come out.

Elnuestros, you dummy.

In the fourth graf, you meant "defied," not "defined."

City council should review all of these opinions before making a final decision since there seems to be a general concensus: if the residents want to keep their beach private then they should privately pay to keep it that way, not use tax dollars from all the other taxpayers yet be able to keep those taxpayers from accessing their "percieved" private property which is slowly eroding away.

Its kind of an ironic twist and perhaps a lesson in "sharing" could be learned from this whole issue.

Adding insult to injury, if you review the property appraiser site you can easily see that the majority of these homes are NOT homesteaded! And looking closer, even most of the ones that ARE taking the homestead exemption are doing so by way of entities known as "family trusts", leading one to the knowledge they these people are not even staying there but perhaps a few weeks or months out of each year.

Selfish Elitists - they don't want to allow anyone else to enjoy the beach, even when they aren't there to be "bothered" by the rest of us! You folks dug your own hole so use your own dollars to fill it in.

"Technically the public can access Hideaway Beach by walking from Tigertail Beach, but practically it just doesn’t happen … My position and the staff position is that public interest without public accessibility is inconsistent," county Coastal Zone Management director Gary McAlpin said.

Amen to that! Too bad the seashore wasn't considered a natural resourse to be enjoyed by everyone with building not allowed directly on it. It's not as if you couldn't enjoy the view from your penthouse ACROSS the street.

Paying for, basically, a private beach still doesn't down well. I hope they continue to vote no.

There are great lessons still to be learned in the state of Florida about building on barrier islands and the beach. We are one great storm away. If you have lived here any length of time, you have seen what happens to the passes and the beach. Coconut Island anyone. Thanks for cutting down those pesty Australian pines...oops. I used to waterski down the inside from Naples Bay toward Marco back before it made your skin fall off.

babsmn, great idea about the pier.

Let the "nearly 12" Hideaway residents pay for it.

Let's all start camping and partying on the Hideaaway Beach.
Forget Keewaydin and Coconut.
Bring the coolers, the tenst, the kids, the dogs, the trach, the noice etc to their "public" access beach and see what happens then.
That'll force the issue of whose beach is it.....

Hm. I know how people feel when they would rather not pay for the wealthy person's beachfront, and I completely agree that if the public IS to pay that they should have free access. If I were rich, I would not mind people enjoying the beach below my multi-million dollar penthouse. Seeing them having fun would make me happy. I think the beach is for everyone to enjoy while it lasts.

And as for the persistent tides, I have something interesting. And no doubt, someone will be completely offended or will think me a moron when I say that I believe I have the solution to the erosion problem. It is true that the erosion of beachfront is a natural occurrence, and that resisting nature is futile.

It is human nature, however, to act in self interest. However futile the attempt, we will succeed or fail, or at least delay the inevitable.

Back to the problem of erosion. What if there existed an item that protected property from being washed away and nourished beaches without having to forcefully extract sand and pump it in, a technique now ruled by the USACE to have a detrimental impact upon the environment?

If the beaches wash away, Marco Island's appeal and tourism dollars will too, but at the same time the less wealthy paying for the fat cats to have a beach that they don't allow the public to have access to is pretty unfair. And I agree, it seems to be very elitist of the highrise dwellers to think that way.

I wish to reach a compromise. This tantalizing technology would be withheld until the private beach owners would open up access to the public, and with ample beach access parking. The costs of the technology would be large however, but the installation would be simple and maintenance almost nonexistent. Private owners would be encouraged to pay 60%, and the public 40%.

If someone could come up with a more reasonable solution, I would enjoy hearing it. Feel free to email me with any and all suggestions. I do not believe the wealthy have the right to hoard the beaches. Money is money, and is a human creation, while the beaches are nature's and everyone has a right to enjoy them. I want to fix this, or to at least help.

Email: bmjudar@plymouth.edu