This is a story about a beach … and a difference of opinion.

Here’s the skinny: A group of residents in Traverse City’s Slabtown neighborhood say they “just want their beach back.” The beach in contention? 200 feet of shoreline on West Bay at the foot of Elmwood (and across Bay Street and Grandview Parkway).

Sandy Cartwright and other Slabtown residents yearn for the quiet, sandy family-friendly beach they had decades ago, before a record “high water” year in 1986 necessitated the installation of concrete slabs and rocks to prevent water from encroaching on the Parkway.

The Slabtown Neighborhood Beach Committee, which Cartwright chairs, recently presented a proposal to the Traverse City Parks and Recreation Commission that would clear the area and make it a sandy beach.

It contends that converting the beach back to its sandy past would tie into the city’s bayfront revitalization plan and future connectivity between the shoreline and the TART Trail.

The problem? The group faces major opposition from a heavy hitter in the local water scene.

The Watershed Center’s executive director, Andy Knott, and baykeeper, John Nelson, are co-signators on a letter to the city Parks and Recreation Commission outlining its concerns: the potential impact on aquatic habitat if the natural vegetation is removed, a lack of need for a sandy beach, and inconsistency with the City’s planning documents.

And, from Nelson’s perspective as a user (and a beach committee member), there is already a beach there. He – and The Watershed Center – see the area’s “vegetative natural beach” as very usable.

“It’s a difference in perception,” Nelson says. “It’s about what you call a ‘beach.’ ”

The Watershed Center points out that approximately 3,000 linear feet of beach and managed shoreline exists just east of the neighborhood’s proposed location, including the West End Beach that includes 390 feet of groomed beach.

And therein lies the crux of the issue: to groom or not to groom that 200 additional feet.

“We don’t feel like we’re doing something that is going to hurt,” Cartwright says. She emphasizes that the committee is supportive of the Watershed’s efforts to protect the bay and the area watershed – and says it is because of the Watershed’s educational efforts that the group is asking for only 200 feet of the shoreline to be groomed.

Nelson emphasizes that if the area is groomed and becomes an “official city beach,” it would come with all the city rules, too. Among those: No dogs. Also, grooming the area would require a permit from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, which demands an identified “need” as part of the application.

So what’s next? The ad hoc bayfront group of the Parks and Rec Commission is meeting soon for a “fact-finding walk” of the beach area with interested parties. It will report back to the commission at its July 7 meeting (6:30 p.m. in the Commission Chambers at the Governmental Center).