Belvedere homeowners drawing lines on the Strip

Belvedere Island’s rocky shoreline at the base of the Harry B. Allen public stairs, seen at low tide, marks the practical starting point of the Strip, the city-owned shoreline that runs behind Beach Road homes to 340 Beach Road. Private docks, piers and a boathouse line the shore beyond. (Tyler Callister / The Ark)

Beach Road homeowners are urging Belvedere to weigh legal risk and hillside stability before it changes how it regulates private structures on the Strip, the city-owned shoreline it has held since 1897.

Six residents turned out for the July 8 meeting of the Parks, Open Spaces and Lanes Committee, which the City Council has tasked with surveying what has been built on the Strip under revocable licenses. Their comments centered on two questions: what the 19th-century deed means by a “structure” and where the Strip’s boundaries lie.

The Strip is a corridor of city-owned land along Belvedere Cove, running from 172 Beach Road, near the Harry B. Allen public stairs, to 340 Beach Road. Belvedere Land Co. deeded it to the city in 1897 to be held in trust “as a general public beach or parkway and water front,” with language requiring that no structure impede “the free passage of pedestrians from one end to the other thereof.” The deed includes a reversion clause: if its conditions are violated, the land returns to the land company.

How much of the shoreline the Strip encompasses, and where it ends relative to the beach and the city’s adjacent tide lots, is among the questions the committee is working to pin down. Under city policy, the two are handled separately: dock leases govern structures over the water, while revocable licenses cover improvements on the Strip. Many Beach Road properties hold both.

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