Delray Beach plans to trim its sea grape trees down to 2 feet and then maintain them at 4 feet high,
except for three canopies within a 1,385-foot stretch of public beach.
Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
By Jane Smith
The topic of sea grape trimming turned into a debate of aesthetics vs. science at two City Commission meetings in December.
“I worry about what we are doing to our sea grapes and canopies,” Commissioner Shelly Petrolia said at the first meeting.
Commissioner Mitch Katz, who was not a member of the commission when the sea grape trimming first came up a few years ago, asked to see the year-old permits on Dec. 6. He also wanted to have the science explained about why sea grape trimming is beneficial to the Delray Beach dune system. Some Delray Beach residents like the canopies created by the sea grapes that lead to the municipal beach.
At each meeting, the tree-trimming contract was on the consent agenda. Petrolia pulled it off for discussion at the first December meeting; the city manager pulled it off at the Dec. 13 meeting.
At the Dec. 6 meeting, Donald Robinson, Manor House Condo Association president, spoke in support of trimming the sea grapes. The condo building sits on western side of A1A, opposite of where the sea grapes would be trimmed.
“In the past six months, people are sleeping in there on mattresses,” he said. He also talked about finding condoms and stolen chairs from the beach concession inside the sea grapes.
“The sea grapes are so thick and tall, that if a big storm came through, they could blow across the street and damage the Manor House,” he said. If that happens, the condo association would sue the city because it had been warned, Robinson said.
Dune consultant Rob Barron, hired by Delray Beach to manage its coastal system, agreed. The former Delray Beach chief lifeguard said sea grapes are worse than Australian pines during a storm. Sea grapes are fast-growing and have brittle wood and shallow roots.
The city planted 50 yards of sea grapes in the 1980s and they have expanded 330 percent, Barron said.
“Nothing grows under them,” he said.
The sea grapes don’t hold the sand, said Environmental Services Director John Morgan. “We need to bring in low-growing plants to keep the dune healthy.”
In other areas of the city’s coastline where the sea grapes were trimmed, the dune plants have thrived, making Delray Beach a model of coastal management and biodiversity.
At the Dec. 13 commission meeting, Morgan presented a compromise. Most of the sea grapes would be trimmed to 2 feet and maintained at 4 feet, except for three canopies along a 1,385-foot stretch of the public beach. Two would be at the opposite ends and one would be in the middle near the Atlantic Avenue pavilion.
The citywide contract with Zimmerman Tree Services costs a total of $75,000, about $35,000 of which would be for sea grape trimming, Morgan said.
The compromise secured votes by Commissioners Petrolia and Katz.
But Mayor Cary Glickstein worried that they were voting for how the sea grapes look and not the science behind why they should be trimmed.
“The commission hired this expert, paid him for his opinion. … He has implemented the plan approved,” Glickstein said.
“Then people in the community are saying this is not what we like. If we wanted that kind of opinion, we should have done a survey.”
He didn’t like the compromise, which he called a “complete cop-out” to the science. But he voted to approve the contract to ensure the sea grape trimming would occur.
In other business at the December meetings, the commission unanimously:
• Agreed to pay up to $200,000 to design and rebuild the Atlantic Dunes Park pavilion that was destroyed in a suspicious fire in June.
• Agreed to five-year deals with its service providers, formerly called nonprofits, to give them taxpayer dollars in exchange for reporting requirements of annual budgets, business plans, audits, outreach and diversity plans and the number of people served or participated in the activities. The service providers are: Delray Beach Historical Society, Sandoway Discovery Center, the Spady Museum, Achievement Centers for Children and Families, and the Boys & Girls Club of Palm Beach County.
• Agreed to a 10-year lease with the Old School Square board at a nominal rent of $1 annually for the Cornell Museum, the Crest Theatre, the Field House, the pavilion and grounds. The lease requires the following reports: annual budget, annual audits, number of adults and children served in the programs, a three-year strategic plan, efforts and results of increasing diversity on its board and cooperative program efforts with other city arts organizations.
The lease details the type of activities the city would like to see on the grounds and in the buildings. In addition, it lists who is responsible for damages. The lease can be renewed twice for 10 years each time.
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