GALVESTON — Beach-front property owners looking to repair or rebuild houses damaged or demolished by Hurricane Ike are learning this week whether city or county entities will issue permits.
The Texas General Land Office revealed Monday a study that determined where the anticipated line of vegetation should form, which is the point where the slope of the island reaches 4 1/2 feet above mean sea level.
Galveston County Engineer Mike Fitzgerald said he didn’t know how many properties or homes would be affected.
The county will permit repairs to homes that straddle the line, but permits to rebuild would only be issued on land that is 50 feet landward of the 4 1/2-foot line, Fitzgerald said.
“The vegetation line has moved, and because of the elevation, the 4 1/2-foot line is further landward than it was,” Fitzgerald said. “Naturally, the beach is going to heal some, and the land office has said it will come back in three months and resurvey what it is using now as a line to regulate from.”
The land office has on its Web site, www.glo.state.tx.us, a link to its study.
The images are viewable through Google Earth, but those unable to download and open the 190-megabyte file can have a look at the county’s temporary engineering offices on the sixth floor of the downtown courthouse at 722 Moody Ave. in Galveston or at Galveston City Hall first-floor planning department at 823 Rosenberg St.
Hurricane Ike made landfall Sept. 13, causing sever flooding and damaging much of the upper Texas coast.
Fitzgerald estimated the storm damaged 5,900 structures on the peninsula, and as many as 3,600 are simply gone, he said.
Whether the county issues permits for properties swept clean by the storm depends on where the public beach is, Fitzgerald said.
The 4 1/2-foot elevation line established by the land office will determine the landward boundary of the public beach and will be reassessed over the next year, said Jim Suydam, the office’s press secretary.
“This is simply a starting point in determining the boundary, since Hurricane Ike wiped out the line of vegetation,” said Jerry Patterson, commissioner of the land office.
Research shows the vegetation line won’t re-establish itself below the 4 1/2-foot mean sea level, Suydam said.
The land office uses the elevation line as a temporary marker for the line of vegetation in determining where the beach begins, Suydam said.
Suydam said Patterson would not enforce the state law that prohibits private structures on public beaches for at least a year after Sept. 13.
That will allow beaches to recover to their post-hurricane profile over a period of four seasons, Suydam said.
Only permits for emergency repairs may be given for properties below the 4 1/2-foot elevation line, he said.
