Council May Require Walkovers

Published by the Mobile Press Register

Council may require walkovers
Elevated walkways are aimed at keeping foot traffic from trampling dunes
Sunday, July 22, 2007
By RYAN DEZEMBER
Staff Reporter
GULF SHORES -- Seeking to protect taxpayers' multimillion-dollar investment in sand and sea oats, the City Council seeks to pass a law requiring all Gulf-front, multi-family structures to install
elevated walkways over the dune system.
If approved, the law would require new developments to include a dune walkover and give all existing Gulf-front structures with three or more units 180 days to build one to standards spelled out in the ordinance. The council is scheduled to vote on the matter at its Monday meeting.

Single-family homes and duplexes won't be forced to build walkways, but should owners choose to do so, the ordinance spells out the standards to which they are to be constructed.
Brandan Franklin, the city's chief building official, said the proposal is intended to keep foot traffic from trampling the dunes and the sensitive plants that hold them together.
In 2005, Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Gulf State Park embarked on a $25 million project to bolster 16 miles of eroded beach by pumping about 5 million cubic yards of sand from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico to shore. Besides extending the beach by as much as 200 feet in some areas, sand was shaped into a manmade dune just south of Gulf-front condo towers and homes and planted with stabilizing panic grass and sea oats.
Dunes provide a natural buffer against storms and act as the foundation for the rest of the beach.
In Gulf Shores, which had also built berms along some stretches of its beach in previous years, taxpayers shelled out about $8 million for its share of the larger project.
Already, however, city officials who inspect the dunes just as they would a bridge or a highway have found the mounds trampled in many places, Franklin said. The worst damage is behind large condominium complexes where visitors seem to be taking the most direct route to the surf without concern for the sometimes weedy-looking but crucial vegetation, he said.
"It doesn't take long to tear down that dune that's been built out there," Mayor G.W. "Billy" Duke III said in support of the proposal during a council work session on Monday.
A draft of the law requires that the walkways behind multi-family structures be built six feet wide and clear the top of the dunes by at least a foot. Screws, not nails, are required to hold the lumber together, and 6-inch pilings must be sunk 10 feet into the beach.
"We came up with some guidelines in the hopes that if we build them big enough, strong enough and deep enough that maybe they'll stay there if we do get storms," Franklin said.
Councilman Steve Jones expressed concern about the cost of such structures.

Councilman Philip Harris, who owns a construction company, estimated that the cost would be $100 to $125 a foot and, depending on how long the walkways need to be, could add up to $20,000 or $30,000.
"With that dune walkover out there, the dune will be better protected," said Councilwoman Carolyn Doughty. "And hopefully there'll be less damage on the property behind it in the future and the cost to put it out there is going to be less than we have to pay to renourish the beach and maybe the damage we get from a storm."
The mayor said that the more stringent construction standards could help cut down on debris after storms as well.
"On a lot of the dune walkovers out there the pilings weren't to that depth," Duke said. "They were maybe done with post-hole diggers four or five feet down."
Franklin said that city officials also view the walkways as a way to promote safety and cleanliness on the beach.
As such, each property will be required under the proposal to have posted at the southern end of its walkway a trash bin and a sign stating the building's name and address to aid rescue efforts, he said.
At the northern end of each structure, Franklin suggested, plaques could be installed describing the beach warning flag system and posting the number for the city's surf condition hotline, 968-8433.
Though the liability involved in making each multi-family structure post beach warning flags on its property would be a "lawyer's delight," according to City Attorney David Whetstone, city officials said they would explore ways to make flags easier to spot along the beach.
Those ideas ranged from making existing flags at city beaches larger to posting a flag at Lagoon Pass that would be visible from Alabama 182.