Crystal Beach Property Owners Worried About Proposal from General Land Office

While many people are heading to the beach to relax and enjoy the holiday weekend, some families are concerned a new proposal from the state could put their beachfront property at risk.

While many people are out enjoying the sand and sun on the beach, Keith Zahar is taking a break inside, thumbing through papers. A proposal from the General Land Office.

Keith Zahar says, "they can be devastating to a community, depending on who's got them. Also, they put power in the county based on how they interpret them and use them."

Zahar calls the rules vague, but those who are concerned say in a worst case scenario, if a beachfront home were destroyed in a hurricane or storm it might be difficult or impossible to rebuild. And even if they could, beachfront property owners say there'd be mounds of paperwork and red tape.

And what's caught his attention is how the proposed rules could affect property owners from the water, all the way back, several hundred feet.

"Right here, 300 feet is the first of second row of houses. In Gilchrest, you're on the other side of the highway," says Zahar.

The Land Office says the rules are needed to help deal with erosion that has caused the Texas coast to wash away at an alarming rate of nearly 10 feet a year.

"The erosion problem needs to be dealt with, but not by stealing land," says Judge Bob Wortham who owns property in Crystal Beach. He's worried the land office will get enough power to take way land from the public, which could hurt the booming economy on the peninsula, and the rest of the Texas Gulf Coast.

"If they won't tell you they're trying to pass a law, they sneak past you, how can you trust to administer the proposal?" asks Wortham.

And to make matters worse, Wortham and other property owners say the General Land Office didn't mail them the proposal. They say it's only posted on the G.L.O. website.

"Just because I don't have a problem, doesn't mean someone else doesn't. And when they take rights from people, no one ever takes it all at once, they take it piece by piece," says Zahar.

And these residents aren't ready to give that up just yet.

There will be two meetings to discuss the proposal next Tuesday, July 8th.

The first is at 11 A.M. at the Justice Center in Galveston.

The second is at 4 P.M. at the Courthouse Annex in Crystal Beach.

You can read the proposal by clicking on this link.

http://www.glo.state.tx.us/coastal/beachdune.html