Commissioners get beach title ball rolling

Many questions remain unanswered, but a new effort to let Santa Rosa Island leaseholders own their property is underway.

“This isn’t going to happen overnight,”  Escambia County Commission Chairman Grover Robinson IV said Monday in Milton during a joint meeting of Escambia and Santa Rosa county commissioners. “We’re not advocating any one position or another, this is about being able to give our leaseholders more options.”

Escambia County legally owns the property beginning at the eastern boundary of Navarre Beach to Fort Pickens, but its deed prohibits transferring title to all or any part of the property. It leases Navarre Beach to Santa Rosa County, and both counties lease residential and commercial properties to private owners.

For more on this story, check out the Oct. 28 edition of the Navarre Press or subscribe online.