FL - Property owners near walkover denying access to Florida Audubon Society
As contested boardwalk goes up next to state critical wildlife area, neighbors send letters to keep conservation organization out
Two days after the Town of Fort Myers Beach Council voted in late September to grant a building permit to Kurt Kroemer and Ed Rood for their controversial 298-feet beach walkover at 8150 and 8170 Estero Blvd., emails started arriving to the Florida Audubon Society from nearby property owners.
The Florida Audubon Society say they received emails and correspondence from the owners of 11 properties over a two-week period, barring the nonprofit environmental organization from those properties near the walkover that crosses state lagoons which flow into the Little Estero Island Critical Wildlife Area.
Rood and Kroemer completed construction of the boardwalk this past week and have stated that 11 neighboring properties will have access to the lagoon walkover, which crosses state lands, marshland, wetlands and other vegetation near mangroves next to the critical wildlife area.
At present, Florida Audubon also will not have access to that privately-owned structure, either.
“Unfortunately, the Florida Audubon has filed a lawsuit against our Town of Fort Myers Beach, so we have banned the Audubon from the walkover and our property,” Kroemer and Rood said in an email to the Fort Myers Beach Observer. They said other property owners and condo associations have joined them “until the Audubon is willing to dismiss their lawsuit against the Town” challenging the town council’s approval of the special exception permit for the walkover.
For years, Florida Audubon has worked closely with Fort Myers Beach property owners near the Little Estero Island Critical Wildlife Area as part of a shorebird stewardship program to help protect the bird nests in the lands within and surrounding the critical wildlife area, particularly near Carlos Pointe Beach, which is the only location within the Florida peninsula where all four Florida threatened bird species nest. American oystercatchers, black skimmers, least terns and snowy plovers are all protected in Florida and all nest on Fort Myers Beach.
Brad Cornell, Southwest Florida Policy Association for Audubon Florida, said the emails will hurt the organization’s efforts to protect bird nests.
“We have verbal agreements with most of the properties owners,” he said. “It’s been a pretty successful nesting area.”
Among the letters the Florida Audubon Society has received from properties along the beach near the walkover prohibiting them from accessing their lands are the Eden House and Carlos Pointe Beach Club.
The property owners include John Cameron, who sent a letter to the Florida Audubon notifying them “it’s representatives and volunteers are not allowed on my property” at 8246 Estero Blvd. where a Luxury Vacation Rentals sign sits.
