Rep. Michael J. Skindell succeeded last year in getting shoreline erosion financing legislation through the legislature.
Crain’s Cleveland Business has published an update:
Lakefront owners always have dealt with shifting shores, but the heavy rains and record-breaking water levels of the last two years have exacerbated normal loss.
According to the Army Corps of Engineers, the water levels in Lake Erie are 13 inches higher than last August and 31 inches higher than the long-term average. Those levels are expected to remain higher than average throughout the year.
State Rep. Mike Skindell, a Democrat whose district includes a long stretch of shoreline in Lakewood, wrote recently enacted legislation that allows owners of Lake Erie-bordered property to create shoreline Special Improvement Districts, or SIDs, for the purpose of funding coastline construction and improvements.
“What we were looking at was a method of financing, because what we were seeing is individual property owners could not afford to privately pay for erosion measures.”