INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Whoever pays the $27 million asking price for a 22,203-square-foot oceanfront home on 15 acres north of Round Island will get to take a 3,000-foot stroll on a boardwalk over mangroves and wetlands right down the middle of the county-owned Oyster Bar Salt Marsh.
“You could take a 2-mile walk every day and never leave your property,” said Clark French, managing partner of Ocean Estate Ventures.
The state Department of Environmental Protection is planning to issue a permit for the 4-foot-wide boardwalk leading from a private citrus grove on the estate to a proposed fishing pier on the Indian River Lagoon.
Residents who may object to the project have until Wednesday to seek an administrative hearing from the DEP. David Herbster, administrator of the DEP’s Submerged Lands and Environmental Resource Program, said he hasn’t received any objections yet.
And county Environmental Planning Chief Roland DeBlois said he can’t object, because the county never was able to purchase the 15 acres when assembling surrounding parcels for the 155-acre of coastal hammock and wetlands.
“We made efforts to buy it, but we didn’t have a willing seller,” DeBlois said Tuesday. “So we do have this private property in the middle of the public property.”
The county and the Florida Communities Trust in 2001 paid about $1 million for the 155 acres, buying eight parcels from at least two different owners a mile north of the Indian River-St. Lucie county line, records show. The main purposes are to give the county Mosquito Control District wetland to use in fighting salt-marsh mosquitoes and prevent development on native coastal hammock, DeBlois said.
But French bought the separate 15 acres in January 2006 for $7 million from Vero Beach-based Water’s Edge Development Co. LLC.
While Oyster Bar is public land and visitors can walk and watch wildlife, DeBlois said, there are no marked nature trails. A visitor might even trespass onto French’s property without knowing it, he said.
Meanwhile, being surrounded by conservation isn’t lost on French, he said Wednesday.
“We had the right to build seven homes with docks,” he said of the zoning. “But look around. There’s enough multi-family development around here, so we thought we’d put all 15 acres into one great estate. Let’s just do one house with a long driveway and lots of space.”
French also has agreed to place a conservation easement on 10 acres of the land, preserving it from being developed by future owners.
DeBlois said that would fall in line with the county’s goals for managing the surrounding land.
French said he hopes his project will encourage other property owners and developers to similarly pull back their plans from the maximum they can build.
The boardwalk is longer than any Herbster has approved, he said, but stressed the residents have a right to river access.
“There aren’t a lot of projects that big,” he said. “It’s definitely an unusual project.”
At the end of the boardwalk will be a 236-square-foot platform where the home buyer can fish or launch kayaks or canoes. But the water there is too shallow for larger boats, he said, and the river won’t be dredged.
“This is only a 4-foot wide elevated boardwalk,” French said. “And the mangroves won’t be cut, only trimmed. And they’ll grow back, up and around the boardwalk, so we’re not removing anything.”
