Kiss our beach goodbye?

Letter: Kiss our beach goodbye ...
Kiss our beach goodbye...
Posted: September 29, 2015 - 4:53pm

By Claude Vann
St. Augustine Record
Kiss our beach goodbye...


Editor: I have been reading a lot about the height variance for the new hotel on St. Augustine Beach.

Background: Some years back my in-laws, who gather at their condo in Myrtle Beach, S.C., broke out some old 8mm movies of the beachfront where their condo now sits. You could see for miles in either direction: nothing but beach. That was in 1976 when they bought their condo pre-construction.

Fast forward to today. Looking north and south from the condo now (a three story complex), all you can see is high-rise hotels and resorts.

The once pristine view of the shoreline is now gone forever. After the corporations got permission to build huge hotel/resort buildings, some 20 to 30 stories high, those became the standard, and Myrtle Beach is now almost completely obscured for all but the ones with access to the beachfront properties.

The traffic in and around Myrtle Beach has become a nightmare, comparable to Orlando or Atlanta. There is barely a square inch of property that isn’t developed or under development.

I fear that St. Augustine Beach will suffer this same fate if limits are allowed to be changed — regardless of the reasons.

The hotel says the Feds require the base to be elevated.

Fine.

Then the hotel should revise its design to be a two-story versus a three-story so the height restriction is in compliance.

Myrtle Beach is a prime example of “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile!”

If the restrictions are violated — legally or not — St. Augustinians can kiss the beautiful beach goodbye!

St. Augustine