We have similar debates here on AC. I'd like to offer some musings about docks.

Docks attract fish - probably a good thing.

This a water-based lifestyle - boats have to park somewhere (in the water).

Trenches along the sides of docks for deeper drafts for boats can, if placed too close to shore, exacerbate erosion.

Rocks, placed under docks can act as groynes preventing erosion, and at the same time provide fish habitat close to shore.

If you accept/go-with the mangrove shore nature of the island you may wish to look at docks as a wonderful recreational feature, a portal to the sea for swimming and snorkeling.

There are complaints about "too many" docks being not so pretty.

Sometimes when I look at the ideas above I conclude that MAYBE it would be a good idea to have:

1. fewer, but longer docks so more boats can park on fewer structures, and so that boats and swimmers alike can more easily access deeper waters (less dredging)
2. docks with piles of rocks running under them well out towards the deeper water to make groynes, attract marine life and protect boats docked along side from heavy current
3. swimming kraals on every dock with sunning areas and comfortable steps down into the sea - piles of rocks under the sunning decks will become little reef habitats for close-to-shore snorkelers, swimmers are not in danger from boats ...

I think I may have built more seawalls than anyone else on CC and hired guys to do research on the thousands of feet of shoreline I have in the South.
Over 30 years they all fell over except for the driven locking sheet pilings. They are expensive and hard to drive manually,and useless unless driven deep.
Dredging in front of the property is an ignorant thing to do.
Part of your land and seawall will one day be laying in the hole you are dredging.
Seawalls ruin your beach for most things like swimming land do not look as pretty as a beach.
Until we put seawalls completely around the island we will be a beach iisland.Afterwards...
If you want actual beach on your beachfront instead of a "realtors beachfront"
You have to do it with sand and an understanding of the water dynamics in your little coastline area. If the erosion moves away from the coast and not along the shore too much you are in luck.
You can try bringing sand from other places and pile it up on the beach.It will wash out but not leave. The mud just offshore will get firmer and more erosion resistant.
At regular intervals you put more sand. You will find the sand coming back a little. When you begin to see little hummocks of white sand in the water you are coming to equilibrium and at the sand will come in and out.Take the cost of that seawall and put it in the bank. Take out twenty percent of the money each year to buy sand. With interest the money will last about seven years.
Seawall going to cost $10K? Put $2K of sand down each year. It will look great for months and will again next year. In some areas over time you will win.You neighbors seawalls will erode you beach but they will all want to swim at your house because you have a beach

Responding to Dianes excellent post on larger group docks. I think public docks at the end of each road is the answer.
The Front dock had twenty different people's boats on it. It was often full of kids women fishing,tourists laughing. Now it belongs to water taxi and everyone needs their own bridge. End of road bridges do not need vehicles on the beach for access. When someone wants a pier permit they can offer him the chance to join in a nearby group public pier with a permanent spot for his boat.

Dane's post about docks at road-points makes a lot of sense.
Suggest CC tries it ....... could make for a great example for all of us!!

"Seawalls ruin your beach for most things like swimming land do not look as pretty as a beach."

Not to mention ruining beaches that dont even belong to the constructing party. We're currently in situation where an extensive seawall to our north is causing significant deterioration not only to our beach but several others to the south of us...

From Western Belize Happenings, Ray Auxillou

THE BEACH RECLAMATION DREDGE AT CAYE CAULKER STARTED WORKING ABOUT THURSDAY LAST WEEK.

1935 According to the kids grandfather when he was alive, the waterline for the beach was about 110 feet out, from the nearest property line.

1890 The older generation to those grandparents, said the beach was about 150 feet out from the line of properties in the village.

1960 Before Hurricane Hattie in 1961, the beach water line was around 55 ft away to the East of the property lines.

1964 In this year, after the damage from Hattie. The island was swept by high tidal surge, about 13 feet and waves on top of that, during Hurricane Hattie, the beach afterward was about ten feet away from the property lines. I am an eyewitness here, saying what I know in my 75 th year.

Under Said Musa and Patty Arceo of the PUP regime, the beach reclamation of that time, about 12 or 13 years ago, cost about $250,000 and they reclaimed the beach street, which is supposed to run in front of the property lines and is 24 feet wide. Anyway, the dredge at that time reclamed about 30 feet of beach. Of which 24 feet is the beach street. Since then there have been hurricanes and erosion. So a lot of it is gone in places.

I would think that this beach reclamation needs to reclaim about 100 feet. You need a bare minimum of 90 feet reclamation, due to the arguments about the beach street 24 feet and the 66 feet supposed to be public undeveloped right of way. ( gives you 90 feet ). My guess is you are looking at a cost of $1.75 million dollars Bz.

I hope whoever gets in, does do it right this time around. There are a lot of arguments among people and town councillors who come and go, about these property lines, the beach street and the right of way. My personal opinion is they need to fill 100 feet. Probably should do so over the next 30 years, all around the whole island. In tourism we are selling many things of ambience. But the major ones are the beach, the coconut trees and the emerald seas. You don´t have those, you don´t have much to offer in tourism. Since tourism makes up something like 25% of government revenues, it behooves whoever is running the government to work on this. In the case of Caye Caulker, there are currently a lot of plotted real estate lots and streets laid out, yet undeveloped. Starting in about 3 years from now, when I ezpect the world economic next BULL MARKET cycle to take off, THEN there will be oodles of cash looking to invest in places like Belize. We need to put our nation and investment climate and infra-structure in order, as best we can.

Logic is impeccable.
One little problem.If we take millions of cu feet of sand out by dredging in front of the island we trash those emerald seas. In the last reclamation they pumped in a quarry in the back and trucked it at first, as required in their contract.
Since no enforcement they began dredging a deep hole in the front and dropping the sand on shore.
In the area where it was trucked in by Blue Wave the beach stayed. In other areas it slid back into the newly dredged hole in the sea in front of the new beach.
This time they are simply dredging out front. The beach is temporary.
The damage is forever.
To achieve a 90 ft beach with this method we will need to dredge about 150 ft wide and let much of it go back in the hole,adding 50 per cent to the cost and damage to the exosphere. It will partially recover but not in three years or thirty.

I like reading the various issues on the message board because I always learn something. Reading this thread reminded me of the East Coast beaches of the US. When I was an undergrad studying Biology I took a course from a seeming eccentric, Dr Rappley (spelling might be wrong) from Delaware. It was dune ecology. Sounds like a science fiction novel?
After a huge hurricane that erroded beaches and created inlets that weren't wanted, he told the state to start building dunes on the beaches using sand fences and planting grasses (a bit like the mangroves). The state balked, but as the beaches deteriorated and deteriorated, they finally gave in as a last resort.
Today, there are wide sandy beaches all along the mid-Atlantic USA because of this program.
All they do now is plant more grass, and put up fences on top if the growing dunes. They also keep people off of them and build zig zag boardwalks over the dunes to allow people to the beaches.
It's the dune...or windbreak that builds the beach. It's natural for the underwater sand in front of the beach to move out and in seasonally, and from storms.
I know we have the reef, and that probably changes everything, but a small version of this scheme might be the answer. Why not ask an expert in this field (certainly not me) to consult in this. The previous posts sound so much like what people and beach towns have already been through. Sounds like reinventing the wheel.

The water from the dredging has started. The water the whole length of the Island from around in front of Happy Lobster to past the split is clouded with sand. Sad because the split is a great snorkel spot. It all looks so merky.

That murkiness is fine sand which will smother the sea life over time with thin slippery mud.
Emerald sea......