Plenty of developments tempt prospective homeowners with private golf courses or clubs, but only a few can boast a secluded beach. And buyers happily pay top dollar for the privilege of a private piece of paradise. But how private those beaches really are is a debate that has echoed in coastal communities and courtrooms from California to New Jersey and throughout Florida. As beachgoers continue to pour into Southwest Florida, it’s becoming a more persistent question for local communities and governments.

Florida’s beaches are public below the high-tide line. The “dry sand” belongs to the owner of the adjacent property, and in some cases privately owned properties line long strips of beaches, blocking public access. Public access is a growing concern in Collier County, where coastal regions are largely built out, but inland areas continue to fill with people drawn to Florida’s sun, sand and surf.

“What concerns me more than anything else is what Theodore Roosevelt said 100 years ago—that the most beautiful natural resources of this country are going to be snapped up by the wealthy, [who will deny access] to those who can’t afford—or don’t choose to be in—their particular location,” says Graham Ginsberg, a former member of Collier’s Coastal Advisory Committee (CAC).

Ginsberg’s outspoken advocacy was not popular among other members of the CAC, and he resigned in February after serving about a year of a four-year term. Florida’s beaches, he says, are “our Grand Canyon. And if we block the entrance to the Grand Canyon with condominiums, and only 10 percent of our population has access through those condominiums, we’re going to have a problem.”

Faced with growing pressure from development, the state launched the Save Our Coast acquisition program in the 1980s to secure beachfront lands for public use. “It’s a finite resource, and it became apparent that demand was growing,” says Russell Schweiss, spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protec-tion (DEP). According to a 1995 report, of the 825 miles of sandy Florida shoreline along the ocean and Gulf, 343.3 miles—41 percent—is publicly owned. And there are areas where consecutive parcels of private property severely limit public access, Schweiss says. “A lot of that has been delegated to counties to deal with.”

Collier County has about 36 miles of beach, with plenty of public access in some areas. In the City of Naples, just about every other beachfront street has an access point. “[But] when you get north of Naples or south of Naples into Marco Island, access gets very difficult,” says county manager Jim Mudd.

On Marco, those points are Tigertail Beach Park and the South Marco Beach Access. Between the two, the beach is lined with hotels, condominiums and other private property where access is available only to residents and their guests.

North of Naples is Pelican Bay, with nearly three miles of beach that’s largely inaccessible to the public. The county negotiated with WCI Communities to allow a parking garage on the north end of Pelican Bay at Vanderbilt Beach, and there have been discussions about a similar facility on the south end at Clam Pass and increasing public access in other areas as well. Those proposals have met with resistance from Pelican Bay Foundation, the master homeowners’ association, fueling a movement to have the City of Naples annex the community. The argument is that the two coastal communities have more in common than Pelican Bay has with the rest of the county, and that the city might better protect private access to the beach.

From a tourism standpoint, Collier County has adequate public access for now, says Jack Wert, executive director of the Greater Naples Marco Island Everglades Convention and Visitors Bureau. “As the county grows and more visitors come to the area, access to the beaches is an important aspect.” However, Wert says, “community goals are, first of all, quality of life and a nice place for everyone to live. You have to balance access with public need and also tourism need.”

“As you look at [the] growing county—or counties, if you’re going to do this in more of a regional brush—the population will double probably in the next 15 to 20 years,” adds Mudd. “That’s going to put a real strain on the access points we do have if we can’t develop and broker additional access points.”

Ginsberg believes beachfront private property should be subject to easements and rights-of-way for public access just as it is for other public projects, such as road widening. Those who value exclusivity shouldn’t build next to public lands, he adds. “When you build on a huge valuable resource that is not reproducible, you should expect problems in the future—and that’s what coastal owners need to realize. This problem is not going away; it’s only going to get bigger.”

The Florida DEP is partly to blame, says Ginsberg. It has permitting powers over structures built along the coast, but only considers public access when it involves beach renourishment projects, under the auspices of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. (Ginsberg has been a vocal opponent of renourishing eroding areas of Hideaway Beach, arguing that it doesn’t truly have public access.)

Providing public access is not a DEP requirement. “We’d really be overstepping our bounds to require people in their own private homes to allow the public there,” says DEP spokesman Schweiss.

Pelican Bay and Hideaway Beach on Marco settled the public-access issue with the county years ago, and property owners are covered by those agreements, says R. Bruce Anderson, a land-use attorney with Roetzel and Andress, who used to serve on a city-county beach renourishment committee. “The developers from whom they purchased [their property] had previously made adequate provision, which was accepted as adequate by Collier County.”

The Pelican Bay developer deeded beach access to the county at its north and south points: Vanderbilt Beach and Clam Pass. At Hideaway, in response to a 1970s requirement for beach access every quarter mile, the developer instead deeded Tigertail Park to the county. If the Collier needs more public beach access, Anderson adds, it has the power to exercise eminent domain and purchase it at a fair market value. But purchasing beachfront property is cost-prohibitive, so county leaders have considered options such as shuttles from off-beach parking areas.

The Board of County Commission-ers is also on the lookout for opportunities to add public access as beachfront properties are redeveloped, says Mudd. “Do I believe it would be a whole lot easier if people had free access to the beach? I believe, from a governance standpoint, that would be a good thing to have,” he says.