Updates Coming

I haven't posted for awhile. Was out of town and then last week had a health scare with my husband. Back on track now and will get some updates posted in the next couple of days.

Comments

[nancilee wydra]

While most of us in Summerplace aren't joiners...it is time for us to come out of our cocoon and face the fact that we will loose what we love if we don't take action. I propose that the entire Summerplace make an overriding association that involves itself self soley with the preservation of the Summerplace "gstalt", which is a lay back neighborhood with homes that have some connection to their sand roads (no garages being the primary face to the street, preserving our foliage, and honoring the feel of the land as primary, not the structure.

The idea of a park at the north end of the street for residents is excellent too.

[Ruth Meyers]

I just wanted to resurface an old suggestion I made quietly to a few people after the 2004 hurricanes. It was an idea that came in response to the destruction of the Furet lot (northernmost on the beach in Summerplace). The concept was to create an entity/association that would be about the preservation and enhancement of the Summerplace beach. Every couple of years, the non-association Summerplacers ("the catch-alls as Bill Glynn called us then), go through the exercise of trying to figure out how to keep the beach just for residents, as the plat (but not their deeds) provide. It's a reasonable concept and homeowners deserve to enjoy the benefits of their neighborhood. In reality, however, it's been almost impossible to enforce because doing so requires the exclusion of friends who live in the outpost of Oceanaire Heights. I've lived in both neighborhoods. Each has it's share of people who disregard the rights of others and lack the sense of neighborhood that Summerplace represents, or at least it has become in the time I've lived here (15 years).

My thought was that anyone who loves Summerplace and what it represents as a "state of mind" could share in caring for and stewarding a future that maintains its and character. Anyone who shared those values could belong and participate in the rights and responsbilities and costs of tending to the beach. If offered in a spirit of inclusion and mutual support instead of the exclusion that is so antithetical to the values we all cherish about Summerplace, perhaps those values might survive into a future that threatens total destruction by the McMansionization that are growing on the beach.

It's a thought. It would take a willingness to give, accept, share....values we all think of when we reflect on what is wonderful about Summerplace.

A couple of starter projects could include working with the county and the state to aquire what is left of the Furet lot and make it a park that would be maintained by the Summerplace Beach Preservation Association (or something like that) And organizing a "McMansion Ordinance" (they exist in many similar older communities now) and/or a historic preservation ordinance (there are probably enough older houses to consider a district). And building a fund, an endowment, to maintain and replace beach steps instead of relying on door-to-door solicitations by the poor soul willing to take it on.

I cherish the values and experiences of having lived and owned in Summerplace, but I no longer have a dog in the neighborhood's fight since I no longer own in the neighborhood. But I truly care what happens to it.

For those who have a financial stake in Summerplace's future, think hard and carefully about what is coming. You can see it already. There are solutions, but they require a little expertise, thinking outside the box, a broader view, and a commitment to the good of the whole and the future, beyond your own self-interests. It's yours to lose.

Wish you all well and congratulate you on this blog and the site.

Ruth Meyers