FILE PHOTO: Jupiter's ocean beach looking south from Jupiter Beach Park, April 2025, which is north of the stretch in the proposed erosion control line. Photo: Dough4872 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
By Jupiter Tide Staff
JUPITER — The state is preparing to draw a permanent legal line in the sand along almost a mile of Jupiter's ocean beach, and it wants to hear from the public first.
Florida's Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund (the governor and Cabinet, who oversee state-owned lands) has scheduled an online public workshop and hearing from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 18, on a proposed erosion control line for Jupiter, according to a legal notice published in Palm Beach County.
What the line is
Under Florida law, an erosion control line is set before a beach restoration project. Once it is recorded, everything seaward of the line belongs to the state, and everything landward belongs to the upland property owners. After that, the boundary stops moving as the beach grows or erodes (Section 161.191, Florida Statutes).
Beachfront owners keep their rights to reach the water, to their view, and to swim, boat and fish. The state also may not allow buildings on the sand seaward of the line, other than structures that prevent erosion (Section 161.201).
Where it would run
According to the notice, the proposed line:
follows the mean high water line along Jupiter's Atlantic shoreline, as surveyed April 6, 2026
is about 0.91 mile long
falls between state beach survey markers R-21.3 and R-25.9
The notice describes the line only in survey coordinates. Our plot of its start and end points puts it on the beach east of South A1A, starting just south of Carlin Park and running south.
The line is for Palm Beach County's North County Comprehensive Shore Protection Project, Segment II.
Sand this winter
At the Town of Jupiter Beach Committee's July 27 meeting, a county coastal manager said all three segments of the north county project would be under construction this winter, from Nov. 1 through the end of April, with intermittent beach access closures, according to the committee's draft minutes. He also said Segment 2 would get a larger dune-planting project. The minutes say the county planned a public hearing on the line in Jupiter in August. The state notice now sets it for Nov. 18, online.
The county has not posted a start date for sand on this stretch.
How to take part
Online: Microsoft Teams. The link, meeting ID and passcode are in the state's notice.
By phone: 872-242-8934, conference ID 138 027 473#.
The workshop is for questions. The hearing follows, for comments, support or objections about the line's location and how it was surveyed.
Written comments go to William Guy Weeks, Beaches, Inlets and Ports Program, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, 2600 Blair Stone Road, MS 3544, Tallahassee, FL 32399-2400; [email protected]; 850-245-7696. The notice says written comments will be accepted for two more weeks after the hearing.
The trustees can still decline to set the line, the notice says. If approved, it will be recorded in the county's plat books.
Related: Jupiter Inlet District seeks bids for 2027 sand-trap dredge, which would pump sand to the beach south of the inlet.
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Sources
Notice of Public Workshop & Hearing, Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund (published Nov. 1, 8 and 15, 2026): floridapublicnotices.com/notices/11732355
Town of Jupiter Beach Committee, Oct. 26, 2026 agenda packet, draft minutes of July 27, 2026 meeting (item 2, County Beach Projects Update): CivicClerk meeting file