Florida Eminent Domain Law Blog

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument from Destin beachfront property owners regarding the City of Destin and Walton County’s beach restoration project. In 2003, Destin and Walton County officials proposed a plan to pump sand onto a 6.9 mile stretch of land in Florida’s Panhandle, indicating the renourishment was necessary due to the region’s impact by recent hurricanes. The officials looked to Florida’s Beach and Shore Preservation Act, which would allow a change to the boundary line between the submerged public lands and the owner’s waterfront property. Essentially, rather than using the Mean High Water Line (MHWL), the FDEP established a new standard, the Erosion Control Line (ECL). The ECL is a fixed boundary which once established would allow all sand pumped on the sea side of the line to denote state-owned land. As such, the beachfront private property owners would lose the right to claim any accreted land seaward and their property would become a mere waterview as opposed to a waterfront property. The Beach Renourishment application was challenged by two property owner groups (Save our Beaches, Inc. and Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc.)

In 2008, the Florida Supreme Court ruled 5-2 against the property owners, ruling that the State has an obligation to maintain Florida beaches “in trust for all the people, “ and the ECL designation did not constitute a taking of private property.

The essential question facing the U.S, Supreme Court is whether the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling and reversal of 100 years of Florida property law that littoral rights are constitutionally protected, amounts to a judicial taking of property without just compensation.

Photo credit: www.destin-fwb.com - Beach Restoration in Progress, Eastern Destin