Noticed recently that Collier County folks are still fighting about personal property vs public beach property. This particular fight was at the Ritz Carlton, but the battles and questions have persisted since before our family moved here in 1956.
Most of our disputes in the City were caused by realtors who told prospective beach front property owners that the lot ran from the street, Gulf Shore Boulevard or Gordon Drive, to the Gulf. This, of course, was a lie and led to calls to the PD with whines about people walking on their beach.
There's that mean high tide thing that's considered the true dividing line. But, witness the battle at the Ritz, calculating that takes an engineer or a Swami and a lotta time.
Quite by accident, we found out the founding father's foresight had made the problem non-existent. An old-time Naples resident called the PD one day and said he'd been reading about the disputes in the Collier County News and wondered if folks didn't realize that the beach was actually a platted street in the City of Naples. We went over and dug through the plats and durned if the fella wasn't right. It was also spelled out in the City Ordinances. Obviously, the founding fathers wanted to retain the Beach's use for everyone, not just a privileged few.
Its name was Gulf Street. All the Avenues in the City terminated at Gulf Street. The plat map clearly defined Gulf Street's right-of-way so conclusively that we kept a copy of it at the PD to show blubbering beach property owners just what their property boundaries really were. And they sure weren't out as far as the invented mean high tide line.
Once a NPD cop wrote a motorcycle rider a ticket for speeding on Gulf Street. And it held up in Municipal Court.
I've wondered over the years if the plat still exists or if some misguided or politically pressured weasels did away with it.
Thanks, Dave for the corrections.
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