Palm Beach officials are considering annual fees and new regulations for hotels and private businesses that place chairs, umbrellas and other amenities on municipal beaches. Police Chief Nicholas Caristo told the Town Council that at least five hotels are currently setting up beach furniture on public areas, including Midtown Beach. Some visitors say the increasingly large hotel setups make portions of the shoreline appear reserved for hotel guests, even when the sand is publicly maintained. Town staff have now been directed to prepare an ordinance that could charge businesses for using public beach space and help fund maintenance, lifeguards and beach safety.
“Palm Beach is home to some of the most valuable oceanfront property in America, but a property deed does not extend without limit into the Atlantic Ocean,” said Eric Gunther, Realtor, Broker of Greenfield Waters on Worth Avenue, Palm Beach County real estate market strategist and commentator. “Generally, the mean high-water line marks the boundary between privately owned upland and the state-owned foreshore. The public may walk along the shoreline seaward of that line, although access to dry sand above it can depend on ownership, easements, local regulations and customary-use rights. In that sense, no Florida beach is truly private from the dunes all the way into the ocean.”
Hotels provide valuable services to guests, but public beaches should not begin to resemble private outdoor hotel lobbies filled with rows of reserved furniture. The debate now facing Palm Beach is whether businesses should be permitted to occupy municipal sand, how much space they may use and what they should contribute toward maintaining it.
Eric Gunther
REALTOR ® and Managing Broker
Greenfield Waters
eric.gunther@greenfieldwaters.com
Call or Text 561-400-8474
Please feel free to visit our website for a complimentary Florida based analytical property valuation at www.greenfieldwaters.com/home-value/
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