A mile from Haulover, under a 32-foot bridge
The West Island of Bay Harbor Islands is about a mile from Bakers Haulover Inlet in a straight line, and Indian Creek Village's bay shore is under two. In 2008 to 2009 the inlet carried 11 feet of water to the highway bridge, with 9 feet reported in the channels leading back to the Intracoastal.
The limit is overhead. The A1A bridge across the inlet is a fixed span with 32 feet of clearance. A centre-console, an express cruiser or most sportfishermen without a tall tower pass under it every day. A boat that needs more heads south instead, through the Broad Causeway drawbridge and the 79th Street drawbridges to the Julia Tuttle's 56-foot span, a long run to Government Cut.
Four town halls for one ZIP code
The post office treats 33154 as one place. It is not. Bay Harbor Islands, Bal Harbour, Surfside and Indian Creek Village each have their own council, building department and code, and a lot two hundred feet across Indian Creek from yours may answer to a different one.
Surfside's seawall standard is set out in a 2023 ordinance, which ties the minimum top of wall to the FEMA base flood elevation, caps it at the Town's design flood elevation, and requires the structure to take two more feet later. Whatever the town, work in the water needs a Miami-Dade Class I permit as well.
Indian Creek frontage and the 12-foot bridges
Indian Creek runs between Bay Harbor's East Island and the ocean-side strip of Bal Harbour and Surfside, then wraps Indian Creek Village on its south and east sides. To reach the bay from the creek you pass under fixed bridges: the road and pipeline bridges from Bal Harbour to Bay Harbor Islands, and the Surfside bridge about half a mile south, each with 12 feet of clearance.
That puts creek frontage in the fixed-bridge category, which we price rather than refuse. It also explains why a bayside lot on the West Island or on Indian Creek Village's west shore can be worth much more than a creek lot a few hundred feet away.