A walk to Victoria House yesterday revealed an obvious invasion of the 30' Queens Walk along the beach front. The structure is a large white condo building located in the San Telmo Area, just south of "Spanish's" vacant lot. The building has built a enclosed private beach leaving the public's access to a maybe three feet of concrete wall footing...any beach was indeed compromised with sea water. Does anyone know anything about this building as it relates to the Queen's Walk?

The beach used to be much further out. If you lose the 60' of beach front you don't have to receed your property the same amount. The same situation occurs in other areas up North as well.

In fact with the property you're talking about, the owners tried to extend the beach and put in a cobblestone walkway for people walking the beach to make it easier for them to pass. The town came along and tore it out.

A cobblestone walkway is not a beach...and, I really doubt that 60' of beach has been lost. Other beach fronts seem to have been relatively stable over the years, at least in the last 20 or so years.

Go further South and you'll see the same thing, same thing North of Mata Chica. Beaches moved around a lot with Mitch. Additionally if you bought your lot 20 years ago and it was surveyed with 60' of beach and then a storm came along and took out more than 60' of beach you can fill back to the original amount surveyed. Go well down South and you can see where that happened recently where a large amount of beach was washed out from the backside due to Keith.

Until that cobblestone walk was put in there was only about a foot of beach in that area.

So, Simon, you're saying that the 60 ft, once surveyed, is fixed, and doesn't vary over time with changes in the beach and the high water mark? So if there were a lot of erosion or other changes in the beach you could actually own not only down to the sea but even part of the sea?

--Lan Sluder

Will return to the scene...I betcha their seawall is well beyond the adjacent building line.

Bill, You are wrong. I developed that property in 1996. Flash forward to today, 2008, you want to bet. how much...

Im with you BB, I iknow thr property he refers to

I do not need to bet. Have you seen it lately?

I had the same concerns about that property and a couple of others until it was explained to me what happened.

If you go up North a short distance you can see some newer developments that are running into the same situation. The beach eroded back from the original survey due to storms and has now been reclaimed and filled to the original survey (which until recently was sea.)