The U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal from the Florida Supreme Court regarding the uncompensated taking of beach lands. My partner, and fellow blogger, Robert Thomas, has created a resource page that is more comprehensive than any internet resource on Stop the Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep't of Environmental Protection, No. 08-11 (cert. granted. June 15, 2009). Professor Kanter's take on Robert's posts is quite laudatory, here.
I'll leave the Constitutional and property rights issues to Robert. From the practice standpoint, this case will certainly impact all local governments and oceanfront property owners.
In a nutshell, Florida's Walton County has pursued an effort to renourish beaches devastated by Gulf Coast hurricanes.
Property owners along the beaches to be renourished challenged the project. The property owners asserted that the efforts to renourish the beach would alter their property boundaries and access, thereby constituting a taking requiring compensation.
The Florida Supreme Court disagreed and found no compensable taking. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case in the Fall. As governmental interests in beaches increase, it is perhaps inevitable that those interests will conflict with the property rights of impacted owners. Whether those conflicts constitute compensable takings will certainly guide governmental actions in shoreline regulations for decades to come.
Stay tuned.
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