Have we had permits for our SoWal beach soirées?
Public vs Private Beach
- Thread starter BlueMtnBeachVagrant
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I doubt it. You could always say that you are two different gatherings, fighting for the same space on the beach.
Hopefully the Florida Supreme Court and/or the US Supreme Court will resolve the private/public beach issue in the near future. All the beaches in Florida should be public.
Also, there should be beach accesses every ? mile or so along all the beaches. Let the State of Florida use eminent domain to take the property up to the dune and also take selected strips of property for accesses. The property owners will be paid for their taken land. If the land owners don’t like that, then they can sell their property and buy
Beach front in the Caribbean, where they can stare at all the sand and water they want, and not have to deal with other people.
Also, there should be beach accesses every ? mile or so along all the beaches. Let the State of Florida use eminent domain to take the property up to the dune and also take selected strips of property for accesses. The property owners will be paid for their taken land. If the land owners don’t like that, then they can sell their property and buy
Beach front in the Caribbean, where they can stare at all the sand and water they want, and not have to deal with other people.
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I am SO tired of all this private/public beach nonsense!
THE BEACH IS PUBLIC!
You can have a private access and restrict its use, you can restrict parking, you can provide no amenities, but once they manage to get to the sand it's public.
You can biatch and moan all you want about people's behavior, but we already have rules and regulations in place to deal with most of it and the rest is just how people behave.
If someone is parking where they shouldn't to use your private beach access you can have them towed.
If someone is leaving trash on the beach you can have them ticketed for littering.
If someone is being loud and obnoxious you can have them arrested for being drunk and disorderly.
If someone is leaving chairs and tents and coolers on the beach day to day, you can have it ticketed and removed.
But if there are too many people and the beach is crowded - that's the reality of life on the planet - you built it, so now they will come!
I grew up on a lake next to a public park. Same issues - cars parking in front of our house/driveway/mailbox, leaving trash in the water and our front yard, kids setting off fireworks, extra noise, dogs going to the bathroom when they weren't even allowed in the park etc.
Our pier was private property and the fenced portion of our yard was private property, all of the lake and both the wet and dry area of shoreline were public. As long as people didn't touch our pier and were following the law, they were doing nothing wrong.
A few obnoxious people is the price you pay for beachfront living and a front row seat to a natural resource. Get over it!
THE BEACH IS PUBLIC!
You can have a private access and restrict its use, you can restrict parking, you can provide no amenities, but once they manage to get to the sand it's public.
You can biatch and moan all you want about people's behavior, but we already have rules and regulations in place to deal with most of it and the rest is just how people behave.
If someone is parking where they shouldn't to use your private beach access you can have them towed.
If someone is leaving trash on the beach you can have them ticketed for littering.
If someone is being loud and obnoxious you can have them arrested for being drunk and disorderly.
If someone is leaving chairs and tents and coolers on the beach day to day, you can have it ticketed and removed.
But if there are too many people and the beach is crowded - that's the reality of life on the planet - you built it, so now they will come!
I grew up on a lake next to a public park. Same issues - cars parking in front of our house/driveway/mailbox, leaving trash in the water and our front yard, kids setting off fireworks, extra noise, dogs going to the bathroom when they weren't even allowed in the park etc.
Our pier was private property and the fenced portion of our yard was private property, all of the lake and both the wet and dry area of shoreline were public. As long as people didn't touch our pier and were following the law, they were doing nothing wrong.
A few obnoxious people is the price you pay for beachfront living and a front row seat to a natural resource. Get over it!
The State of FLorida does not currently recognize that all the beachs in Florida are Public. Until the State recognizes this, likely by a court ruling,
then all the beach is not public.
If you doubt this, find one of those obnoxious people and put your beach chair on the beach in front of their house. But, be perpared for a ride to Defuniak Springs as a guest of a Walton County Deputy Sheriff.
Right now, only the issue of beach nourishment and the resulting conversion of newly added sand to public use is what will be determined soon; nothing more as far as I am aware.
I would certainly entertain that.
It should be via negotiation, and can not be done via eminent domain (not one of the valid reasons for eminent domain). Again, the same end result could occur through negotiation. But I'm very afraid the county (and my socialist buddies) would rather try to TAKE it by other means in the name of tourism and other "opinions".
I think we're having a major breakthrough here.... Finally someone who thinks the beaches should be public AND acknowledges that there are private beaches AND that a private beach has value to its owner.
If the Supreme Court rules against Walton County on the existing case, then I believe negotiation will be the only "real" possiblity of converting private beaches to public beaches in Walton County. Everything else is just noise.
Good posts IMO (and no, I don't know PeterFrohwein from Adam).
This part of the story is particularly troubling. If the obnoxious dune holder wants to press a trespassing complaint, The Deputy should only fill out the citation and have the complainant sign it. Then they go to court and the officer is uninvolved further. Arrest of a beach goer at 1030 am AND holding him until 830 pm sounds to me like an abuse of power, and a waste of tax payer funded resources.
If I correctly recall the law of eminent domain, gov't cannot use eminent domain to take property for recreational purposes, and I think sunbathing would fall into the definition of recreation.
I think that the key to eminent domain is that the land be devoted to
"public use" . I believe that good government lawyers could make
a sucessful argumant(s) and win a case or cases that could expand the
current defination of eminent domain to also include beaches.
It could be argued that the beach could be loosely defined as a public park.
"Traditionally, eminent domain has been utilized to facilitate transportation, the supplying of water, and the like, 184 but the use of the power to establish public parks, to preserve places of historic interest, and to promote beautification has substantial precedent.
Quote weblink: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment05/14.html
President Case below:
Shoemaker v. United States, 147 U.S. 282 (1893) (establishment of public park in District of Columbia)
Case weblink: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment05/14.html#f184
I don't think that will fly. From what I understand, each state can have varying laws involving eminent domain. Example: Florida, I believe, changed eminent domain regarding seizing private property for the purpose of increasing the tax base....i.e. allowing developers to redevelop valuable coastal porperty when maybe only mobile homes are currently sitting on the land and are perhaps homesteaded. This form of eminent domain is now a no-no (as it should be).
BUT.....
Let's assume it could happen. You sound like a fair minded individual. Let's say the state and/or county can seize private beaches via eminent domain.
The BIG question is how does one establish the value of the beach seized (basically dune line to water line)?
As you state, the property owner must be compensated for the value of the land "taken".
In the case of private beaches, is it generally the current difference in value of beach front vs. first tier? vs. 2nd tier? vs. 1/2 mile off the beach?
How does one truly value a piece property in which so many can financially benefit from?
These are questions looking for answers not confrontation.