As a NJ shore homeowner, I was not happy to see this headline until I saw the extremely specific circumstances of this particular land grab.
The Tidelands laws are continually manipulated to benefit political friends of those in power. My in-laws owned beach front property in Ocean City, where the sand dunes were so protected that they were not allowed to walk on them for fear of disturbing the eco system; that is until a family member of the most powerful family in town, wanted to build a new beach front home on those dunes.
Another legal consideratoin might be whether the property "owner" (the government) has remained silent to 60 years of open and notorious use of this property by others, including the construction of capital improvements by other branches of government, without asserting an ownership claim....
Also whether the "owner" (government) has collected "property taxes" levied on the residents as if they were the owners...and whether the "government" owner has itself paid any property taxes or compensated the municipality in any way for services provided to this property it now claims.