Eroded: 30A's Battles for Florida's Beaches

In this Bonus Episode, Jared Schnader (host) speaks with Sara Day. She was interviewed for a previous episode of the Eroded Podcast, and came back in to speak with Jared about her involvement with the HBO series, Neighbors . If you haven't seen it, the series highlights absurd and sometimes violent altercations between neighbors. The first episode, "Shoreline Defender", revolved around the battle...

In this episode of Eroded , host Jared Schnader sits down with Sara Day, a Santa Rosa Beach resident who has become a central figure in the fight for public access to Walton County beaches. Moving from Texas in search of a laid-back coastal lifestyle, Sara quickly realized that the idyllic beaches she and her family had envisioned were not fully accessible to the public. From being harassed on the...

In this episode, we examine the legislative and grassroots efforts that reshaped beach access in Florida, focusing on how HB 631 (effective July 1 2018) created a legal framework for local governments to take action on "customary use" of dry‑sand beaches—yet it especially targeted Walton County, where property owners and the county itself spent millions of dollars in litigation. Meanwhile, the sub...

🎙️ Show Notes: Customary Use, Vendor Impact & the Changing Beach Economy In this segment, we examine how the repeal of local ordinance authority under HB 631 forced Walton County into the courtroom to establish customary use, leading to over 1,100 lawsuits and mounting legal costs. While the intent was to ensure non-political adjudication of property rights, the real-world application resulted in...

Show Notes – Who Are You Representing? In this episode, we dive into the political maneuvering and legal battles that shaped the future of Walton County's beaches following the passage of HB 631. The discussion details how state legislation—authored by lawmakers outside the county—ultimately rolled back Walton County's customary use ordinance, forcing the county into litigation against more than 1...

Episode 3 – Eroded Beaches (2017–2018) "30A's Battle for Florida's Beaches" I'm about to show you how four Florida lawmakers — two at the state level and two at the federal level — were involved in decisions that impacted beaches along the panhandle between 2017 and 2018. This episode drills into the evolution of HB 631 , a bill that began as an eviction-related technical amendment and ultimately...

  Show Notes In this episode, we dive into the complicated and highly charged fight over customary use and private beaches in South Walton (especially along County Road 30A). The conversation begins with a recap of HB 631 — a controversial Florida law that many local residents believed would "take away the beach" from the public. Amid election-period rhetoric, people received alarming emails about...

  🎙️  Eroded – Episode 1: 30A's Battle for Florida's Beaches Over the past year and a half, this issue has been examined and is one of the most intense and consequential local issues in recent Florida history: the struggle over using the beach and property rights in Walton County—specifically the 27 miles of coastline along County Road 30A. What began as a seemingly isolated conflict has steadily...