In recent years, Ponce has been tolerant at best of those who made their living on the water.

In 1992, it barred construction of new marinas. As properties here grew more valuable, there weren't many homes within a fisherman's reach. The 2000 census listed all of two town residents who might be fishermen.

Yet waves of newer Ponce residents -- the retiring baby boomers in particular -- like what remains of the town's fishing village feel, and prefer it to walls of condos.

Last winter, after the Town Council agreed to rezone an aging boatyard for yet more condos, residents raised Cain, circulating petitions and demanding the state block the change. The council reversed its decision; the Lighthouse Boatyard stayed.

And with that was born a movement to protect the handful of properties that embody Ponce Inlet's marine heritage.

Mayor Nancy Epps was keen on maintaining public access to the water, as were members of the Volusia County Council, particularly as private development ate up other boatyards in the area. And a new state law encouraged coastal towns to protect their "working waterfronts."

How to keep them around proved a stickier issue, particularly because most of the owners would sell for condos in a New York minute, and possibly sue if they couldn't.

Town officials consulted lawyers and held public meetings, seeking ideas from every corner. They asked the county to consider buying a boatyard, and toyed with the idea of running one themselves. They wanted to save their riverfront from being swallowed up by condos, but how to do so was the million-dollar question.

This month two major property owners presented their answer.

Surprise. It's condos.

Inlet Harbor Restaurant and Marina would build 150 units -- some of them on protected conservation land. A complex near Down the Hatch restaurant and Sea Love Boat Works would have at least 29 -- and probably many more.

The owners say they can preserve the working waterfront. Some residents fear they'll destroy it. What's an upwardly mobile fishing village to do?

HOW BIG?

Inlet Harbor's owners won't talk about their proposed project, nor have they provided drawings to the town officials who requested them. Suffice to say it's big.

In mid-March, a lawyer for the restaurant and marina unveiled at a special town meeting a drawing of what the owners would like to build, with the aid of an unnamed developer and some zoning changes.

It showed 90 townhomes and a 60-unit "villa" -- along with underground parking garages, ice cream shops, a restaurant, a canoe launch and some public boardwalks.

Attorney Jim Morris did not say how much boat access would remain for the public. By preserving the restaurant, he argued, Inlet Harbor would preserve the working waterfront.

As for the five or more acres of the project that are conservation land, Morris said only that he believed the land had been wrongly zoned.

Morris then presented a Plan B, a bleak rendering of the Inlet Harbor area turned marine manufacturing plaza -- uses, he argued, that are acceptable under the current zoning. The restaurant was gone; public access was nil; and engine-repair and boat-storage hangars dominated the compound.

Residents quickly decried Plan B as a scare tactic. "That's absolutely not what it was," Morris responded. Town staff and council members later voiced more concerns, particularly about the conservation land.

Councilman Gary Comfort said a rezoning on that land would "open Pandora's box." The woods in question border wetlands, and have been zoned for conservation since the 1970s. If Inlet Harbor believed such zoning was improper, Comfort said, "they're late in asking."

Town planner Pete Grigas, who'd invited Inlet Harbor to present drawings, said he had no idea what or where Inlet Harbor wanted to build until the March meeting. "They got no encouragement from me," he said, to put condos on conservation land.

A second project was proposed the same night -- or half a project, anyway. This one was much better received.

Developer Lyder Johnson, who owns 16 acres of property on the riverfront, showed drawings for 29 townhomes on some of it. He would save the property's historic trees, he said. His wife, Simone, promised the council she'd chain herself to them if he didn't.

What they want to do with the rest of the property they're not yet saying. The Johnsons' family business now owns the Sea Love Boat works, Down the Hatch restaurant, the shuttered Old Florida Club, and the Sun Cruz casino dock.

The Johnsons plan to move here from Orlando. For now they're running the restaurant and the boat works, and say they're committed to improving both.

Town officials like the Johnsons' approach. But they don't believe they'll stop at 29 condos.

The Johnsons don't deny wanting to build more units. They also say they want to see fishing boats unload at a hopping seafood restaurant, a long line of customers waiting to get in, an active marina "We're creating a working waterfront," said Lyder Johnson.

"I've known this property since 1983," he said, when it looked like part of a fishing village. "This is an attempt to bring some of that back in." Baby boomers are moving en masse to their Ponce Inlet investment properties, he said, and they need somewhere to eat, walk, hang out.

"Everybody hates condos," Johnson said. "But if you've got this property you have to add the residential component."

"We wouldn't consider 100 condos," said Simone. "I wouldn't want to live in a place like that."

A SUBTLE MOVEMENT

Within a year, Ponce Inlet's "how to save our working waterfronts" debate became one of "how many units."

"There's been a subtle movement," said councilman Comfort. "This was either the innocent result of discussions or the result of a well-planned strategy."

Last fall Comfort questioned whether the Johnsons and their attorneys had attempted to steer a "working waterfronts" workshop for residents by packing the room with their allies -- many of whom, it turned out, didn't live in Ponce Inlet.

Though it's rare for a Ponce Inlet resident to beg the council for condos, the workshop's participants overwhelmingly favored mixed-use development, including condos, on the waterfront.

"Many citizens felt manipulated," complained one resident in an e-mail to the council. Johnson said the town never made clear who was welcome at the workshop, and that accusations of deck stacking are "silliness."

Mixed-use can mean many things, and the town has no zoning for it. Done poorly, it can mean small businesses, tucked amid condos, that quickly fail. Done right, in theory, it could revitalize a gritty riverfront.

Town officials say they won't rezone anything unless the benefits are obvious. "Each (project) is taken into account on its own merits," said Mayor Nancy Epps. "We're not obligated to rezone somebody's land just because we did it for one person."

Yet if officials aren't careful, the little fishing village risks big lawsuits. "I am confident that the town would prevail on the merits," said Comfort, "but the town might be challenged to match the deep pockets of the developers."

virginia.smith@news-jrnl.com

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