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1639-24 Politics THU APR 26 1984 ED: FINAL SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: 1C LENGTH: 1123 LONG ILLUST: photo: Harry Plissner (2 ) ; diagram: beach property lines )URCE: JUANITA GREENE Herald Environment Writer ,DATELINE: MEMO: ACTIVIST MOUNTS FIGHT TO RETURN STRIP TO PUBLIC Harry Plissner squinted in the glare as he strolled a wide vacant strip of sand between the new boardwalk and the oceanfront buildings on Miami Beach. He was casting a practiced eye on familiar territory. For more than 40 years, the 83-year-old civic activist has been fighting to protect the public ' s right to the waterfront. Today, he thinks, he must do battle again. "Now I ask you, " said Plissner, as the sun bore down on his dark blue polyester sport shirt, "Is it in the public interest for the state to have given this land away to the hotels?" Then he answered his own question. "I say it is not. " Plissner' s indignation is over a strip of sand between 10 and 75 feet wide that runs 10 1/2 miles from Government Cut to Haulover Cut. The beach was restored in the last decade by dredging sand offshore and pumping it up on the eroded shore. The project cost nearly $80 million. The strip that concerns Plissner is between a line set by the state and a line set by the city. The state line, closest to the water, divides public from private property on the newly widened beach. The city line is a bulkhead line that set the limits for development on the old beach. Between the two lines is the vacant strip, a sort of no- man' s land. -ng the state line, an artificial dune has been built, with a new boardwalk top. Along the bulkhead line are concrete walls that once served as barriers against the sea. Plissner claims this strip between the two lines once was public land and should be still. Before the new beach was built, he said, the city bulkhead line ran along the water' s edge and marked the limit of private property. The land between the two lines, now in the hands of beachfront hotels and condominiums, once had to be kept vacant. But on April 4 , the Miami Beach City Commission gave the owners the right to develop it for all kinds of private, open-air use -- specifically, "shade structures, sidewalk cafes, swimming pools, cabanas, hot tubs, showers, whirlpools, toilet facilities, swimming pool equipment, decks, patios and court games when said games require no fence. " The council hopes the land will be used for cafes and such, helping to attract people to the new boardwalk and create a new ambiance for the beach area. Plissner opposes private development of the strip. If the facilities are needed, he said, the city would be better off to develop them itself . That way they would be certain to be open to everybody. The city even could sell concessions in the area and get some revenue from it, he said. City officials say Plissner' s plan is a good one except for one impediment. "The land is privately owned, " said city attorney Lucia Dougherty. "It has really never been public property. " Murray Gold of the Miami Beach Resort Hotel Association agrees. So does file principal city planner, Richard Rickles. Permission to develop the strip delayed after the new beach was built only to give the city time to draw t.ne regulations and establish a design review board to oversee them, Rickles said. Plissner disagrees that the land always was private land. If it technically is in private hands today, he said, the conveyors should be held accountable. "The state Legislature, by giving away the beach area between the boardwalk and the property line of the upland owners, is guilty of a breach of public trust, " he said. The state line, called the erosion control line, was set before pumping the new beach. Everything west of the line became private property, t .erything east -- toward the sea -- became public property. Before this, Plissner said, the public ownership extended all the way to the city line. County coastal engineer Edward Swakon said in some cases this may have been true, but not in the majority. "Definitely we are in a better situation now on public rights, " he said. The public versus private debate long has been waged on Miami Beach. Plissner has been in the thick of the fight, and has won some notable victories. It was on the basis of a suit brought by Plissner that Circuit Judge Charles Carroll made his landmark ruling in 1953 establishing the public ' s right to the beach area between mean high and mean low tide. "Carroll said private property ends at the city' s bulkhead line, " said Plissner. Engineer Swakon said that a lot of new beach law has been passed since the Carroll decision. One is the law that requires an erosion control line to be set on all restored beaches to delineate public from private property. Plissner expressed concern that if a hurricane washes away the new beach, which scientists say is possible, only private property would be left along the oceanfront. Metro Commissioner Harvey Ruvin, who claims a great respect for Plissner, had his concerns researched by the county attorney' s office. The conclusion was that if the public beach is lost, the state can reclaim the land it has conveyed to the private upland owners. "Fat chance, " was Plissner' s reaction to that opinion. He predicts the private owners would fight to keep the land, then demand compensation if they eventually had to relinquish it. In battling almost singlehandedly to protect the public interest on the ti ich, Plissner is being typically Plissner. He has led countless public :vice crusades. It was Plissner, joined by a small band of ardent supporters, who forced an election in which the voters approved the requirement that a doctor be on all city rescue vehicles. He took to the street again in his effort to have Miami Beach buy Florida Power and Light Co. , getting enough petition signatures for a referendum, but losing the vote. He currently is suing the city for restricting the location of "congregate living" nursing homes, claiming the action is unfair to elderly residents. To claim the beach strip for the public, Plissner said he had secured the aid of attorney Jay Dermer, former Beach mayor and another champion of public beaches. Dermer, said Plissner, was going to take on the case in the public interest, charging no fee, but he died suddenly on April 5 . Plissner is contemplating his next move. "Experience has taught us, " he said, "that we are going to lose property unless we make a fight for it. " He is now looking for an attorney to take Dermer' s place. ADDED TERMS : mb protest land END OF DOCUMENT.