Council Avoids Proposals For Sanders Beach Buying Or Leasing Of Beach Urged

City leaders may not act on a recommendation urging them to lease or purchase controversial Sanders Beach.

City planning commissioner Steve Badraun said last week that population growth and overcrowding at area waterways mean conflicts between East Lakeshore Drive homeowners and Sanders Beach users may “fester and fester and fester.”

He and his colleagues on the appointed board asked the city to take steps now to resolve the problem.

But no council member has been willing to push the city toward action of any kind.

Councilwoman Nancy Sue Wallace said the high cost of any solution - probably in the millions of dollars - and beach property owners’ unwillingness to sell the land leave city leaders unenthusiastic.

“Since they don’t want to sell, we’d have to commit to condemning the land,” she said. “To buy it, we’d have to get voters to vote on it in a bond election.

“I would assume the voters would not vote for it, but I don’t know,” she said.

The beach on the east side of Tubbs Hill has been a source of controversy for years. In 1992, homeowners Roland and Beatrice Almgren put up a “No Trespassing” sign and had a sunbather arrested.

Landowners since have continued to leave the beach open to public access.

But restaurateur Joe Chapman’s threat this spring to build condominiums at the water’s edge renewed concerns that the popular beach won’t always be open for public swimming.

Tonight, the City Council is expected to act on a plan to reduce zoning in the area to block future attempts at high-density development.

But Badraun and planning commissioner John Bruning both said that is not enough.

“We need to find a way to secure it over the long-term for future generations,” Bruning said. “And we have to give it a pretty good priority.”

While police aren’t prepared to patrol a private beach, litter and loud parties are increasingly frequent, Badraun said. Meanwhile, at least one landowner appears to be landscaping her yard into the beach area.

It’s a run-in waiting to happen, he said.

“I don’t want the problems there to get worse, and I don’t want to wait until the neighborhood is galvanized” against beach users, Badraun said. He fears the city then would be stuck “between the devil and the deep blue lake.”

But neither Wallace nor Mayor Al Hassell expects the council to discuss the issue further unless one council member takes the initiative.

At the moment, that appears unlikely.

Hassell, for one, does not like the idea of leasing the land. The city would not get equity and the price could rise from year to year.

And if the city were to buy it, the land first would have to be appraised - an expensive proposition by itself.

“Of course I’d love to buy it, but I’m also a realist and know it may not be possible,” Hassell said.

, DataTimes