Biscayne Point and Stillwater: Haulover is the near inlet
From the north end of Miami Beach the nearer way to sea is Haulover, about 2.5 miles in a straight line from Biscayne Point against roughly 7 to Government Cut. The catch is height. Going north you pass the Broad Causeway drawbridge, which is only 16 feet shut and keeps a quarter-hour schedule in the daytime, and then the A1A bridge across the inlet, fixed at 32 feet with a power cable at 53 feet just east of it.
Anything taller turns south instead. Miami Beach Channel leaves the Intracoastal just south of the Broad Causeway, runs down to Biscayne Point and along the west and south sides of Normandy Isle, under the 79th Street Causeway's eastern drawbridge, and down the bay. South of there the Julia Tuttle is the fixed limit: 35 feet on the channel, 56 feet on the Intracoastal.
- Haulover Inlet: 11 ft controlling depth to the highway bridge (2008 to 2009)
- Tidal current in the inlet: about 2.9 knots flood, 2.5 knots ebb
- A1A bridge over the inlet: fixed, 32 ft above mean high water
Allison, La Gorce and Normandy Isle: which shore your dock is on
Frontage in this part of North Beach comes in two kinds. Some faces the open bay. The rest faces Indian Creek or the channels that join it, and those are bridged low: 11 feet at the West 63rd Street drawbridge beside Allison Island, 6 feet at the fixed bridge on the channel west of it, and 5 feet at the fixed bridge between Atlantic Heights and Normandy Isle.
Two lots on the same island can land in different price bands for that reason alone. A bayside lot on La Gorce Island is big-boat water. A lot that can only get out under the 5-foot Normandy Isle crossing suits a tender and not much more. We will tell you which one you have.
North Bay Village sits on the Intracoastal itself
Harbor Island, North Bay Island and Treasure Island are the causeway. The Intracoastal runs past their west ends and the 79th Street bascules sit either side of them, both 25 feet closed, so a lot here is minutes from the main channel with no fixed bridge until you choose a direction.
The Village writes its own seawall rule. Since March 2021, a property that is developed or substantially redeveloped has to bring its wall up to the Village's design criteria: a 5.94-foot NAVD88 cap, with foundations able to take another 2.5 feet. That is stricter than the Miami Beach figure just across the eastern drawbridge, and it is part of what a buyer here budgets.