From the Omnibus, thread entitled "Building Block Paceables". Post by Robert Babiak, Bioware programmer, circa 2002:
"...placables have a walkmesh, usally made up of non walkable area. But they can have walkable area also."
Here's video of a placeable with a hole I made, for instance.
And your demo is exactly the "deep sand" effect I was looking for! Or you could also say, that's one hell of a sand trap! Brings back distant memories of retrieving balls from a low spot "water hazard" that only appeared when it rained a lot. And yes, I always seemed to find it.