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People should know when they buy a beachfront lot, they're buying the view, not the beach. :roll:

Now that is an interesting statement. If the deed reads mean high water mark as the boundary, they ARE buying the beach, but not necessarily with exclusive use. The reason I bring this up is because as I understand it, if a beach goer is injured on that "privately owned" property, the owner of the property may be paying damages if taken to court.

That is what is so crazy for me to understand. The property owners claiming rights to the beach, have been allowing the public to use the beach, without objection for years, though if the public is injured on that property, the owner may be liable. Also, the property owner is going to pay taxes based on the assessed taxable value, which is usually directly tied to the size of the parcel. I see at least two very big ways a Gulf front owner could benefit by quit claiming the lower beach elevation of the property, and it seems that they are essentially not losing anything, since the public has always been using that property anyway. I really don't understand their side, and would love to hear an objection to the above thought.

If the property owner IS sued for damages resulting from an accident on that beach property, I bet the property owner's attorney argues that the beach property is really the public's, due to case law, as the one I previously posted. That is the irony -- the private Gulf front property owners may be the biggest proponent of public beach, if they are sued for damages. Can you imagine a top notch professional football player, stepping into a deep hole on the beach, snapping his leg in two, never again able to play football? With an annual salary of $10 million, and 15 more years of playing time, that is going to be one hefty lawsuit of damages.

If you go online and look at plats, you can see that some parcels go to the mean high-water line, and some do not. Like SJ says, the owners of the former pay taxes on that property. In trying to look at it from the point of view of these owners, how can they not have the viewpoint that they own that property? They are buying the beach because that is included in the acreage that they purchased and pay taxes on.

To address the issue of customary use, things have really changed since we first started coming to the area. There weren't the high-density developments north of County Highway 30A that there are now. Back then I wouldn't think that beachfront owners would have minded small numbers of people flowing over into their property from the public accesses. Fast forward to 2008. Now with the proliferation of these high-density developments, there are larger numbers of people from these developments using the public (and private if there's no gate) accesses and thus larger numbers of people flowing over into private property for which, as SJ pointed out, the owner faces liability issues.

In my opinion "customary" is relative. The customs from the past don't relate at all to the situation now because things are different due to higher volumes of people visiting the area and not staying at condos/homes with private beach walkovers.

Someone in Saturday's Walton Sun was complaining that the Planning Commission should approve more projects because the economy is so bad and that people in the development/construction industries need jobs. Isn't that how this whole problem of beach use started? That is, because Planning and then the BCC didn't appear to totally think through the repercussions of approving these high-density developments and approved developments that should never have been approved, these growth issues have occurred?

I'm just trying to look at things from the point of view of a beachfront owner which I am not. It sucks to pay for property and have a boatload of people with all of their beach junk in your front yard (those homes face the beach). Yet it also sucks that people come to "the beach" to vacation and can't use the beach as they once did. :sosad:

I probably shouldn't post this. Too inflammatory of an issue. There are probably more people who disagree with me than agree. Please don't slam me.:eek:
 

sunspotbaby

SoWal Insider
Mar 31, 2006
5,010
739
Santa Rosa Beach
The beach is not their yard. The beach is whatever Mother Nature wants it to be. What if tomorrow we woke up and it was 3 miles to the water? Would that be theirs too?

Oh, and There would be construction on it before you know it, and then the owners don't have beachfront property anymore. :bang:

Property lines shouldn't be determined by high tide. The reason they don't have a yard is because they built as close to the water as they could possibly get a permit for.

Don't go building houses on the sand.

I had my trailer set up in the middle of my lot. :roll:
 
The beach is not their yard. The beach is whatever Mother Nature wants it to be. What if tomorrow we woke up and it was 3 miles to the water? Would that be theirs too?

Oh, and There would be construction on it before you know it, and then the owners don't have beachfront property anymore. :bang:

Property lines shouldn't be determined by high tide. The reason they don't have a yard is because they built as close to the water as they could possibly get a permit for.

Don't go building houses on the sand.

I had my trailer set up in the middle of my lot. :roll:
I am not a lawyer, so I can't answer the question in the first paragraph. However, it's more likely that they will lose acreage, as evidenced by what happened in the 2005 hurricane season when some properties fell into the water or were condemned.

Actually where one builds is dependent upon the CCL (Coastal Construction Line). Fairly recently the CCL was moved farther north. People who own beachfront lots can't build on property they've paid for that's south of the CCL. I know of a property which was sold, and the new owner found out that it was virtually unbuildable due to easements, the movement of the CCL, and height restrictions, even if they moved the footprint of a house as far north as practical. The last I heard, the lot is back on the market.

Bottom line: thanks to the new CCL, you can't build a new house on the "beach."
 

BeachSiO2

Beach Fanatic
Jun 16, 2006
3,294
737
Actually where one builds is dependent upon the CCL (Coastal Construction Line). Fairly recently the CCL was moved farther north. People who own beachfront lots can't build on property they've paid for that's south of the CCL. I know of a property which was sold, and the new owner found out that it was virtually unbuildable due to easements, the movement of the CCL, and height restrictions, even if they moved the footprint of a house as far north as practical. The last I heard, the lot is back on the market.

Bottom line: thanks to the new CCL, you can't build a new house on the "beach."

You've been given some bad information regarding the Coastal Construction Control Line (CCCL) for Walton County as it is the third oldest in the state and is in the same location it has been in since April 1982.

http://www.dep.state.fl.us/beaches/publications/pdf/reestabh.pdf

Currently in the Panhandle, Franklin and Gulf are undergoing relocation landward of the old location.
 

NotDeadYet

Beach Fanatic
Jul 7, 2007
1,422
489
People who own beachfront lots can't build on property they've paid for that's south of the CCL.
Not true. The CCCL is a line of jusrisdiction, not prohibition. It means if you build south of the CCCL, you need a DEP permit, and you have to build to a different construction standard. It's more expensive, usually, but you can build. You might have to resituate the house on the lot and you might not get to build as big a house as you want, but you can build. Sounds like the people you know have multiple issues that might have reduced the buildable footprint to something impracticle for their needs or wants. Or they might have bought something that was originally a bigger lot and someone split it, maybe even a questionable split, and now it doesn't just doesn't work.
 
I know that that there are homes near ours that couldn't be built where they are now due to the change in the CCCL (sorry for the mistake in the acronym :roll:). I suppose that one could request a variance. I can produce a Google Earth visual of the existing homes and the current CCCL if anyone is doubting my credibility on this. Trust me, we've spent uncountable hours on this issue. Just a little fuzzy because it's been a year since we were actively involved on a related issue.

No splits BTW.

EDIT: BTW I won't post the Google Earth visuals because it would be an invasion of privacy.
 
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scooterbug44

SoWal Expert
May 8, 2007
16,732
3,330
Sowal
The whole idea of "it's my private beach because it's on my plat" is just dumb. Every piece of property in the world has restrictions and easements - even the MOON has regulations about what you can and cannot do on it.

Just because you own a piece of property and pay taxes on it does not mean others do not also have various rights to use it or alter it. Your "private property" may include public sidewalks that you must maintain, drainage or utility easements, fire hydrants that dictate where you can and cannot park, a bike path, a mailbox whose size, shape and location is determined by others, your trees may be cut down or trimmed by power companies, the list goes on and on.

I grew up on a lake and the area of our yard near the water's edge was public property. Not just the area where the waves hit (like wet sand), but an area of dry land as well (like the beach from the water to the dunes). Someone could stand on the shore and fish for hours, walk through the area to get to the water or to continue walking across other yards (all the way around the lake if they wanted), swim, throw for their dog, whatever.

Shorelines and beaches are public areas and there should be no limitations on people using them as long as they follow the laws and regulations (litter, dogs, glass, etc.) How people GET to those shorelines and beaches is the problem. Greedy developers funneling large amounts of people through one small access has created problems, but that doesn't mean we should drastically change the way we all use the beaches. More and more people are going to come to our beaches, so we need to plan for how to reasonably accommodate those numbers. Providing more parks with more parking spaces, bathrooms, garbage disposal etc. is a reasonable solution - having your own security force arresting little kids building for sand castles is not.
 
The whole idea of "it's my private beach because it's on my plat" is just dumb. Every piece of property in the world has restrictions and easements - even the MOON has regulations about what you can and cannot do on it.

Just because you own a piece of property and pay taxes on it does not mean others do not also have various rights to use it or alter it. Your "private property" may include public sidewalks that you must maintain, drainage or utility easements, fire hydrants that dictate where you can and cannot park, a bike path, a mailbox whose size, shape and location is determined by others, your trees may be cut down or trimmed by power companies, the list goes on and on.

I grew up on a lake and the area of our yard near the water's edge was public property. Not just the area where the waves hit (like wet sand), but an area of dry land as well (like the beach from the water to the dunes). Someone could stand on the shore and fish for hours, walk through the area to get to the water or to continue walking across other yards (all the way around the lake if they wanted), swim, throw for their dog, whatever.

Shorelines and beaches are public areas and there should be no limitations on people using them as long as they follow the laws and regulations (litter, dogs, glass, etc.) How people GET to those shorelines and beaches is the problem. Greedy developers funneling large amounts of people through one small access has created problems, but that doesn't mean we should drastically change the way we all use the beaches. More and more people are going to come to our beaches, so we need to plan for how to reasonably accommodate those numbers. Providing more parks with more parking spaces, bathrooms, garbage disposal etc. is a reasonable solution - having your own security force arresting little kids building for sand castles is not.

So, can we please sell off these gulf front parks now that this movement is underway to declare all the beachfront available for public use? Let me guess:

You want that and more.
You want to take the funds from the taxpayers.
You want to limit new development on private land to keep homes away from it too.
 

scooterbug44

SoWal Expert
May 8, 2007
16,732
3,330
Sowal
If you actually read my post, I stated that we needed to use our existing gulf front parks (and create additional ones) to provide the access, parking, restrooms, etc. so that we can effectively accommodate the increasing number of people using the beach.
 
The whole idea of "it's my private beach because it's on my plat" is just dumb. Every piece of property in the world has restrictions and easements - even the MOON has regulations about what you can and cannot do on it.

Just because you own a piece of property and pay taxes on it does not mean others do not also have various rights to use it or alter it. Your "private property" may include public sidewalks that you must maintain, drainage or utility easements, fire hydrants that dictate where you can and cannot park, a bike path, a mailbox whose size, shape and location is determined by others, your trees may be cut down or trimmed by power companies, the list goes on and on.

I grew up on a lake and the area of our yard near the water's edge was public property. Not just the area where the waves hit (like wet sand), but an area of dry land as well (like the beach from the water to the dunes). Someone could stand on the shore and fish for hours, walk through the area to get to the water or to continue walking across other yards (all the way around the lake if they wanted), swim, throw for their dog, whatever.

Shorelines and beaches are public areas and there should be no limitations on people using them as long as they follow the laws and regulations (litter, dogs, glass, etc.) How people GET to those shorelines and beaches is the problem. Greedy developers funneling large amounts of people through one small access has created problems, but that doesn't mean we should drastically change the way we all use the beaches. More and more people are going to come to our beaches, so we need to plan for how to reasonably accommodate those numbers. Providing more parks with more parking spaces, bathrooms, garbage disposal etc. is a reasonable solution - having your own security force arresting little kids building for sand castles is not.

So does this mean it's o.k. with you that the same holds true for our bayfront, bayou front, river front, lake front properties too. Can we set up on someone's bayfront shoreline with a chair, food and drink, radio, frisbee and fishing gear for a family get together?

What, exactly, is the difference?
 
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