St. Maarten Private Eye

As for beach erosion. Here is a link to another picture of this beach and it is clear to see that the beach on this picture is much narrower than on the one posted above. Apart from that I do not believe there would have been a fifty meter setback. I could imagine it being feet but not meters. Besides you got your info from a newspaper article and have not actually seen the permit. Lay-out of the project would have been in the drawings that were submitted for the building permit and from that it would be clear, that a fifty meter setback, especially towards the northern end of the beach would have rendered big parts of the property non-usable and it would also have been clear that the so-called 50 meter margin was in no way observed. Figure it out.. I agree with another poster that it would be good to get your facts straight, as well as this building-permit or other permits is concerned.

As for the beach itself: it seems hard to imagine that a hotel, that advertises itself as a beach-hotel would destroy or render unusable the very beach it is situated on. That seems kind of outrageous to me.

In the old project, the little "villa's" used to be right smack bang on the beach, from where the beach would slope down towards the water. I can remember times that especially at the southern and northern end of the beach, there used be hardly any or no sand and/or beach at all, just pebbles or the water lapping at the steps of the structures..

Beach erosion does take place in this area, especially during north-eastern ground swells, such as we had a couple of weeks ago. In fact the beach became a lot narrower within the time of one day. After some time the beach comes back again as the sea and waves bring in the sand. I regard this as normal: the width of a beach is not engraved in stone, since we are talking about a "living" thing.

In the old Dawn Beach Hotel, the beach bar, used to be on the beach, and sometimes the front (sea side) used to have the water lapping at the steps, and at other times the beach would be immensely wide such as on your picture above.

As for Red Pond beach: there used to be none until some 10-12 years ago, but since then the beach has steadily been becoming wider and wider. No idea what caused that, but I would imagine, that such a beach could disappear again.

Observer1602