GALVESTON — West End developer Marquette Land Investments may have violated the city’s beach and dune plan when it took sand from its beach-front property and piled it on the bay side of the island, a state official said Friday.
The Texas General Land Office asked Marquette to return the sand, which the developer agreed to do, land office spokesman Jim Suydam said.
Although some residents speculated the sand was going to be used to fill low spots in the bayside property, the pile was only there for the sand’s protection, Marquette managing partner Darren Sloniger said.
“We’ve had people stealing sand from our property,” he said. “So what we were trying to do was stockpile the nonbeach-grade sand on property by the bay.”
The sand was not from the beach itself, but the excavation was within 1,000 feet of the mean high tide line, which state officials said was part of the beach system and therefore protected, Sloniger said.
Company officials did not know they were violating any city rules by moving the sand, he said.
The plan was always to move it back to the beach, once they could protect it, he said.
Sloniger, who is based in Chicago, did not know who was stealing the sand, how much they had taken or what kind of equipment they used to remove it.
The company found out about the theft from people in Galveston, he said.
Marquette became a lightning rod for anti-development sentiment in 2007 when it announced plans to blanket 1,058 acres of vacant land between 8 Mile and 11 Mile roads with 4,000 houses and condominiums, an 18-hole golf course, a marina and a 15-story beach-front resort hotel.
Several city council members, including West End representative Dianna Puccetti, lost their seats in the 2008 election after voting to approve the plan in November, 2007.
Before moving forward with the project, Marquette must get permission from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fill 66.8 acres of non-tidal wetlands and excavate 3.9 acres of estuarine wetlands.
It must also get the city’s Planning Commission to approve final plats for all nine of the project’s development tracts.
Marquette submitted plat requests for four sections, but only two will come before the commission on this week, planning director Wendy O’Donohoe said.
The commission will consider approving final plats for tract 2, north of FM 3005 and west of 8 Mile Road, and tract 4, closer to the middle of the development, on Tuesday.
Cases for tracts 1 and 9 will be heard during a future meeting, O’Donohoe said.
None of the tracts Marquette plans to move forward with include work that requires corps permits.
