Several hundred protesters marched over Haulover Bridge on Saturday, waving signs and chanting for their rights to convenient beach access. Photos by Richard M. Brooks

A couple of hundred surfers and other beach-lovers lined the bridge over Haulover Inlet Saturday, holding up signs and surfboards with such messages as “Beach Access Is Your Right” and “I Pay Taxes, I Want Access.”

The protesters were fed up with construction along Haulover Inlet that has made going to the beach in Bal Harbour a hassle. The public parking lot located under the Haulover Bridge and the pedestrian path leading from the lot to the ocean have been closed on and off since January 2004. That’s when the Harbour House condominium was imploded to make room for construction of the über-luxurious One Bal Harbour condominium hotel being built by WCI Communities, Inc.

For more than a year and a half, the Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting beaches and oceans, has been working to get the parking lot and pedestrian access reopened to the public. In the process, its members say they found an illegal deal in which Bal Harbour Village Manager Alfred Treppeda leased the parking lot to WCI for $150 per day.

“Basically, they [Bal Harbour] violated the constitution, which says you can’t give private enterprise benefits from state land,” said T.J. Marshall, legislative policy coordinator for the Surfrider Foundation.

The parking lot is owned by the Florida Department of Transportation, which has leased it to Bal Harbour for $1 per year since 1970 to provide parking for beachgoers.

The Surfriders, through extensive public records requests, discovered that Bal Harbour had leased the spaces to WCI without FDOT’s permission. Marshall claims WCI paid the village $300,000, which he said should be given to FDOT. Treppada disagreed with the foundation’s math and claimed the lease had actually earned the village $123,000.

Whatever the number, it’s possible that the village will have to turn the money over to FDOT. The issue is in pre-litigation, according to FDOT’s director of transportation, Gus Pago.

Pago acknowledged FDOT had given permission to close part of the parking lot so WCI could resurface it with brick pavers and new drainage, but not to store other construction equipment on the lot, as the village did. When FDOT found out the entire lot was closed, it forced Bal Harbour to open 20 spaces in the lot in December 2006. Treppeda claims the village complied, but the amount of construction vehicles and equipment block access.  

Protesters say they are often harassed by police, ticketed and intimidated.

“Construction people can park there all day long, but they keep giving us tickets,” surfer Gary Lambert said.

During the protest, Patricia Maurer, a Florida WCI Realty agent, pulled up in front of One Bal Harbour in her Audi to inquire about what was happening.

“I understand the protest is peaceful, but we’re doing this for the good of everybody,” Mauer said. “People just need to be patient.”

She said the path to the beach will be finished in the next few weeks, and will be 15 feet wide and lined with brick pavers and other landscaping elements. Others estimate that the parking lot and path will be completed closer to May.

When the lot reopens, Bal Harbour will be charged more than the $1 annual rent it has paid for the last 38 years. FDOT and the village are currently working on a revenue-sharing deal that will give FDOT a percentage of the money collected from metered parking. It isn’t aimed specifically at Bal Harbour, Pago said, but is part of an across-the-board FDOT policy change to get local jurisdictions to help pay for maintenance and expansion projects.

The larger implication of Bal Harbour restricting beach access, according to Marshall, is that it threatens federal funding for beach sand renourishment projects throughout Miami-Dade County. That money is contingent on public parking and beach access being provided along the county’s entire oceanfront coastline.

“They are right; with beach renourishment funds, you have to have access and parking, but occasionally with construction you have to limit access for safety,” Treppeda said.

If that funding is lost, fault should be placed on Department of Environmental Resources Management Director Carlos Espinoza, according to Marshall, who feels the director should have done more to force Bal Harbour to make its beaches more welcoming to nonresidents.

“We feel it’s [Espinoza’s] incompetence that’s to blame for the problem here,” Marshall said.

Espinoza disputes the claim.

“According to the federal sources we deal with, that’s not going to affect the federal beach money,” Espinoza said. He explained that the beach path was closed for safety reasons, and that another was provided down the street.

Protesters complained that the alternate beach access, at the Bal Harbour Club, was poorly marked and meant beachgoers had to walk another quarter mile.

The protest Saturday remained peaceful, despite an orange Rinker concrete mixer spilling concrete within inches of protesters as they waved signs on Haulover Bridge.

“He was pulling his horn, and as soon as he got to us he unloaded concrete,” said Steve Sprechman, his flip-flop clad feet and bare shins spattered with gray cement.

No one was hurt, but two cars parked under the bridge were damaged when the wet concrete spilled through drainage holes.

Officials from Rinker Materials didn’t return phone calls for comment.

“I can’t tell you if it was intentional or not, but I can tell you it was ironic,” Bal Harbour Police Chief Thom Hunker said. “We did cite the driver for not securing his load, which is a traffic violation.”

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