Posted on 03/23/2022 3:02:38 PM PDT by Jacquerie
A Walton County circuit judge has rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of “customary use,” a concept that has long allowed the public to use parts of beaches that are privately owned.
Judge David W. Green issued a 10-page ruling Monday that turned down arguments by Northshore Holdings, LLC and Lavin Family Development, LLC, which own property along the Gulf of Mexico and contended that customary use violates the state and federal constitutions. The Florida Constitution ensures public access to portions of beaches “below mean high water lines,” often described as wet areas of beaches.
But customary use involves dry-sand areas of beaches above the mean high water line that are often privately owned.
Green pointed to a 1974 Florida Supreme Court opinion that allowed the public to use those areas of beaches. He wrote that he is “without authority to enter a judgment finding the doctrine of customary use as established by the Florida Supreme Court unconstitutional as a violation of the prohibitions against taking of property without just compensation or without due process of law.”
Walton County has been part of a series of legal battles about beach access, at least in part sparked by a controversial 2018 state law that put restrictions on customary use. David Theriaque, an attorney for Walton County, issued a statement Tuesday that said Green’s ruling “is an important step in keeping the beaches of Walton County free and accessible to residents and guests.”
Perfect, thank you.
I’m HUGE on property rights, but riparian usage goes wayyy back,.before America existed. Seaside property owners, rightfully, cannot deny others access to the shoreline.
That said, it gets gets gray on issues like cutting through owner’s property to get to the beach or how far up from the water is permissable. Tides, seawalls, fences, docks, jetties etc. create issues too.
That makes sense. I’ve lived on beaches for years and thought beach ownership was silly, not to mention beach topography changes with every storm.
Another reason to never move to Florida. Actually, between snakes, bugs, gators and humidity, I am staying right here in PNW.
Apparenty fishing, fowling, and navigation is a Maine thing.
Island Journal
Fishing, Fowling, and Navigation
How a colonial ordinance shaped a coastline
BY REBECCA PRITCHARD
. . .
In Maine, the public has rights to the intertidal zone for fishing, fowling, and navigation.
If that list sounds antiquated, it is. Yet per Maine statute, no one can stop you from casting a fishing line into the water, digging for clams, or shooting a duck (in season) from their private intertidal land, if you can get to it without trespassing. You have the Massachusetts colonial government to thank for this right.
https://www.islandjournal.com/history/fishing-fowling-and-navigation/
What this means is that you can use the intertidal zone as long as you are fishing including clamming, hunting (there are separate laws that prohibit discharge of firearms, but you can hunt with knives or spears) or getting from one place to another.
Good.
Stay in PNW. Whatever that is.
Sounds good. Thanks!
Please explain.
My Dad lived in Walton county and had a running feud with a Yankee attorney who moved in and cut off the beach access.
Finally got the access after 3 years due to the guy buying off politicians and delaying the law.
This was around 10 years ago. He has since passes and wanted his ashes spread of the guys property. We complied. Dad got the last word.
You seem nice.
PNW = pacific northwest
In general, only the states in the eastern part of the US use riparian rights. That's a legacy of English common law. But the states to the west, the ones that were once owned by Spain or Mexico use prior appropriation. Florida is in the east, but it was Spanish once. For more, see: Riparian water rights and Prior-appropriation water rights.
Thank you.
Publicly funded beach “replenishment”....
Grrrrr...
We’ve had similar fights in Utah with the Sierra Club and rich landowners buying land and trying to close roads and trails that have been in use for 100 years. So far the courts have kept them open. Also the fools who buy property on the edge of BLM land and then want to shoot the deer and elk who raid their gardens. Ha ha. Too bad.
Town beach on the North Shore of Long Island, NY solved the problem of people walking the shore below the high water mark. Town extended the beach farther into the Sound. Using pilings, boards and riprap along both sides of the property out into the Sound, the town filled in with sand between the jetties. The high tide mark on this new section of beach was now off shore of the low water marks of the adjoining properties. Aside from having to get wet to get below the town beach high water mark, I’m not sure climbing up over the jetties would not be considered tresspassing.
In New Jersey, Chris Christi owns the beaches
Funny you should post that.
Growing up there, I was thinking, specifically, of Long Island when I was posting. Florida too, where I am now.
Many of those south-shore jetties were installed by private landowners way back when.
This was in Northport.
Back in the 60s we used to walk from Crabmeadow SP, west to the warm water outflow from the LILCO plant. Great fishing for blues and stripers well into winter. The township pulled that stunt I believe in late 60s early 70s.
Looked on Google Earth and can’t quite place where they did that. Too many decades and I guess Sandy changed that shoreline from what I remember
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