The Galveston County Daily News

The city council late Thursday approved buyouts for 32 beach-front properties but postponed for two more weeks a decision on 29 others.

Hurricane Ike damaged all 61 houses when it swept ashore last year.

The 12 houses and 20 vacant lots approved for buyouts are seaward of the 200-foot public beach boundary set in August by the Texas General Land Office. Houses on the public beach easement or on state-owned land, between the low and high mean tide lines, could be removed under the Texas Open Beaches Act, although Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson has said he would remove only houses that posed a health or safety threat or blocked beach access.

The 29 properties council members postponed deciding about are landward of the public beach and not at risk of being removed by the state.

Following City Manager Steve LeBlanc’s recommendation, the council unanimously agreed to ask Deputy City Manager Brandon Wade to evaluate all houses landward of the public beach to determine which ones could stay on the tax rolls.

Although all of the houses outside of the public beach easement are safe from state-ordered removal, they might not all be eligible for repairs because of the city’s 25-foot dune setback and the state’s beach rebuilding project.

Wade will bring the council an individual recommendation on each house outside the public beach boundary on Oct. 22.

Arguing Both Sides

After the council agreed to participate in the federal buyout program in January, about 100 homeowners submitted buyout applications, Wade said.

City staff rejected about 40 applications because they were landward of the public beach boundary, which at the time was set at the point inland from the water where the beach reached an elevation of 4.5 feet above sea level. Vegetation, the line of which usually marks the public beach boundary, will not grow below 4.5 feet.

Patterson moved the boundary to 200 feet landward of the mean low tide line in August, putting almost half of the houses in the buyout program off the public beach easement.

If the public beach boundary had been set at the 200 foot line in March, city staff would have excluded from the program all 29 houses now up for further review, Wade said.

Based on the process previously used, Wade recommended the council reconsider those applications.

But Wade also recommended the council approve buyouts for houses outside the beach easement because it would help create the buffer between the beach and development that council members have asked for in recent months.

“I realize my recommendation to you is odd because I’m arguing both sides,” he said.

Financially Hurt

Fifteen applicants begged the council Thursday to approve their buyouts.

Many said they no longer could afford to keep paying mortgages on properties they could no longer use.

“Ike took our livelihood,” Gayle Barnhart said. “We are financially hurt by each month that goes by.”

Most homeowners didn’t get enough insurance money to make repairs, Barnhardt said.

If the city decides not to buy the houses, they will become a blight on the beach as they continue to deteriorate, she said.

Barnhardt and most others said they wanted to reinvest in Galveston but could do so only if they sold their damaged houses to the city.

Homeowners also told the council they had made decisions about temporary repairs to their houses based on the expectation that they would be bought out.

Many of the houses have deteriorated in the last year because they have not been touched, homeowners said.

‘We Told Them No’

But other island property owners who were never offered the buyout program are in the same situation, Councilwoman Elizabeth Beeton said.

“I certainly have constituents who are paying mortgage and rent payments and would have jumped at the chance to get pre-Ike market value for their houses, especially after the state decided to pay the local share for them,” Beeton said. “But we told them no.”

Under the program, the Federal Emergency Management Agency pays for 75 percent of the buyout.

The land office got $10 million from the state Legislature to pay the other 25 percent.

Federal regulations require property bought under the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program to remain publicly owned vacant land after the houses are demolished. The council decided in January not to pockmark its urban neighborhoods with empty lots and denied homeowners behind the seawall the chance to request a buyout.

Council members decided to buy beach-front houses to remove obstructions to beach access or future beach rebuilding projects, Beeton said.

Houses no longer in the public beach easement no longer meet that criteria, she said.

Although she said she could understand buying houses on the public beach, Beeton opposed paying for houses that Ike destroyed because those structures no longer existed to encroach on the beach.

Beeton and Councilwoman Susan Fennewald voted against the buyouts for houses on the public beach easement.