Florida beach program OK says US Supreme Court
TALLAHASEE, Fla. – June 18, 2010 – Florida’s efforts to renourish eroded beaches does not violate the rights of nearby property owners, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a case brought by Walton County landowners following 1995’s Hurricane Opal.
In a 15-page ruling, the nation’s highest court agreed with the state that beachfront owners are not severely harmed when renourishment efforts extend the distance their properties lie from the shoreline by, in essence, expanding the shoreline seaward.
The case stems from recovery efforts following Hurricane Opal, when Destin and Walton County began a process of pumping sand onto beaches, establishing a boundary line between public and private land to control future erosion.
Stop the Beach Renourishment, a not-for-profit group of six landowners, argued before the Supreme Court that these augmented beaches deprived them of direct beachfront access and should be considered a taking of their land. The First District Court of Appeal (DCA) agreed.
But the nation’s high court upheld the 2008 state Supreme Court opinion that overturned the earlier DCA decision. The state has a “constitutional duty to protect Florida’s beaches,” according to the Florida Supreme Court, and was within its rights by moving forward with renourishment.
Landowners’ rights were not violated, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, even if the extra sand increased the distance between the landowners’ property lines and the water.
“Regardless of whether an … event exposes land previously submerged or submerges land previously exposed, the boundary between (private) property and sovereign land does not change,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. “It remains (ordinarily) what was the mean high-water line before the event.”
Attorneys for the landowners said Thursday they we disappointed in the ruling, saying it further diminishes private property protections guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.
“Private property rights are a legacy forged in the American Revolution by our Founding Fathers and passed on to us through the generations,” attorneys Kent Safriet and Richard Brightman of Hopping, Green & Sams wrote in a joint statement following the high court ruling. “They are a cornerstone of our society’s prosperity and freedom. Today’s ruling weakens those rights to the detriment of private property owners everywhere.”
Source: News Service of Florida, Michael Peltier