For most BPO's, their position is one almost all property owners share: BPO's purchased property with borders and they have a full bundle of rights and quiet enjoyment with their property, just like every other Walton county property owner. They want the same rights you enjoy with your property.
For BPO's this entire decade long campaign to overturn private beaches is about protecting their property rights, not about keeping locals from using the beach.
1. BPO's have a full bundle of rights. There are no limitations stated on their deeds. There is no blanket public access easement across these properties. The four corners of the deed do not limit the bundle of rights.
2. The property purchased has boundary to the MHWL.
3. The county has recognized private property beach ownership for decades in thousands of documented examples.
4. Most BPO's have no issue with locals use of their property, however most BPO's reject that their property should be forced to bear the full burden of the public and have no say in who uses their property.
5. There's was no legal challenge to BPO's decades of property ownership and rights until the "customary use" legal maneuver started being discussed at the BCC level with Larry Jones and Attorney David Theriaque sometime in the 2000's. Destin tried and abandoned CU in 2002, as the AG's office stated it had to be litigated on a per parcel basis.
The responses to BPO's:
1. The only reason you have a deed to the MHWL was to prevent someone from building in front of you.
2. You only purchased the view, smells and sounds.
3. Because the dry sand is not assessed, you don't pay taxes on it, and you don't really own it.
4. Beach dry sand property is worthless.
5. You knew when you bought your property that the public used it openly and freely.
6. No one owns the beach.
7. Access and use are two distinct concepts. Private access is morally good. Private use is morally wrong.
8. The MHWL moves and so you don't really own the property.
9. Most beach property was obtained illegally by quiet title claims stealing public beach property from the county.
10. Walton county public has always had "customary use".
11. Privatizing beaches is wrong (as if "privatizing" is a new concept).
12. The new law made the public beaches private.
13. Private beach really only ever meant secluded beach.
14. We didn't have any issue until beach front owners put up signs and ropes.
15. People paid $100 for public property and made it private.
16. Deeds and plats have been forged, altered, tampered from the original deeds.
17. BPO's are greedy, elitist, selfish and not part of Walton county community. BPO's are last in the order of protection of their rights: tourists first, beach vendors second, everyone else third, property owners last.
18. Mike Huckabee is responsible for the mess the community is in.
19. There never were private beaches in Walton county until this last round of new owners.
20. Customary use is not about property rights - you still own your property.
Replies
31
Beach Lover
The law in CA is the same as in FL as respects public beach, i.e., effectively the wet sand in both states. It is access to that wet sand, not to any private dry sand, which is guaranteed in CA . The point of contention in this case in CA was whether the state may force a private landowner to engage in a business by forcing him to apply for and receive a permit from the state to put up a gate and change the public admission to his private road as a pubic access to the wet sand of this particular beach. Denial in this case means the owner must get such a permit as was had and employed by the previous owner who was charging for both parking and access via his private road. Hardly the circumstances in Walton County.
Beach LoverAuthor
#281
Politics, Control, Real Estate, Development
Beach Fanatic
"Good luck with all that"Dave R do you read the court papers, and facts, or only have emotional "stand your sand" euphemisms?
Supreme Court Turns Away Billionaire Who Wanted To Turn People Away From Calif. Beach.
Surfrider Foundation prevails landmark beach access case. Those pesky surfers.....
This CA case sounds very much like the Walton traditional neighborhoods WaterSound, Watercolor, Rosemary Beach, Seaside, gated private properties where you and Uhlfelder live that you have defended as fortunate to control beach access. Are you against this CA private property owner's rights to control access to his private property but OK for your neighborhood to have private beach access?
The SCotUS choose not to hear the case. One of the about 100 accepted from the 7,000 cases submitted annually. The CA case was not significant enough for the SCotUS to consider. SCotUS did not rule on anything about the case. The CA court ruled that a development order is required and without a permit the owner can not have private use of his property.
The property owner refused to seek a CA development order (permit) to ask permission from CA government to enforce his Constitutional property rights of private exclusive enjoyment or to close an unprofitable business admitting the public for a fee to the private property. The CA courts ruled yes, to close access and the business, required a permit.
The Supreme Court of the United states (SCotUS) questions presented were:
1. Whether a compulsory public-access easement of indefinite duration is a per se physical taking.
2. Whether applying the California Coastal Act to require the owner of private beachfront property to apply for a permit before excluding the public from its private property; closing or changing the hours, prices, or days of operation of a private business on its private property; or even declining to advertise public access to its private property, violates the Takings Clause, the Due Process Clause, and/or the First Amendment.
The CA property owner only has to apply for a CA development order permit to close the gates and be denied by the CA government, which is likely, to take the case back to the CA courts or SCotUS; which the property owner stated he will seek a CA development order permit and if denied would again seek to protect his Constitutional rights. That would likely ripen to a SCotUS acceptance.
CA Coastal Act key paragraph (c) Maximize public access to and along the coast and maximize public recreational opportunities in the coastal zone consistent with sound resources conservation principles and constitutionally protected rights of private property owners. Lofty goal but poorly worded overly broad law.
"The government may establish these [public access] rights (such as by purchasing land to create a public path to the beach) or they are sometimes established through historic public use.
Acquisition through historic use is explained in the California Coastal Access Guide in order for the public to obtain an easement by way of implied dedication, the essential elements that must be established are that the public has used the land 1) for a continuous period of five years as if it were public land [it was clear the public paid this property owner for access and was not public], 2) with the actual or presumed knowledge of the owner, and 3) without significant objection or significant attempts by the owner to prevent or halt such use.
The ultimate determination of prescriptive rights, if they are challenged, takes place in court."
Edited
Beach Fanatic
Martin’s Beach: A Matter of Principle & Property Rights May 8, 2018
Vinod Khosla
BELEIVE - in Constitutional Principals! Aug 11, 2017
Pacific Legal Foundation Youtube Sep 24, 2014
Vinod Khosla
BELEIVE - in Constitutional Principals! Aug 11, 2017
Pacific Legal Foundation Youtube Sep 24, 2014
Beach Lover
"Good luck with all that"
Supreme Court Turns Away Billionaire Who Wanted To Turn People Away From Calif. Beach.
Surfrider Foundation prevails landmark beach access case. Those pesky surfers....
Supreme Court Turns Away Billionaire Who Wanted To Turn People Away From Calif. Beach
NPR
The Supreme Court has refused to take up a billionaire's appeal of a lower court ruling that forced him to maintain public access to surfers and others who visit Martins Beach, a scenic spot near Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco.
The case had been shaping up to be a showdown over California's Coastal Act, with possible ramifications for other states with laws to preserve public access to beaches. Advocates for public access are hailing the court's decision to decline the case as a victory. The Supreme Court declined the case on Monday, the first day of its new session.
THE TWO-WAY
California Court Orders Venture Capitalist To Reopen Disputed Beach
A legal fight over the beach had been brewing since 2008, when Vinod Khosla, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, bought Martins Beach for some $37 million. Within a year, his management companies had begun locking a gate at the property; it then shut down a parking lot where members of the public had been able to pay a fee to reach the beach.
The abrupt change angered surfers and other locals and drew a lawsuit from the Surfrider Foundation, which said Khosla shouldn't be allowed to privatize a beach that people had used regularly for decades.
A California court ruled against Khosla in 2014; in August 2017, a California appeals court backed that decision, ordering Khosla — a venture capitalist who has invested in solar power, biofuels and clean energy — to reopen the beach.
"Today's decision is a significant win for beach access rights across the nation," said attorney Eric Buescher, part of the legal team representing Surfrider Foundation. In a statement released by the group, he added, "By declining to hear the case, the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the owner's attempt to purchase a public resource."
To prepare for a potential Supreme Court showdown, Khosla had hired well-known attorney Paul Clement, a veteran of dozens of cases at the high court, including the challenge to the Obama health care overhaul.
But the justices declined to take the case on Monday, ending a lengthy process that included the initial appeal, a response by Surfrider, a counter-response by Khosla's lawyers and numerous briefs filed by interested parties.
Those exchanges had fed speculation that the Supreme Court would take the case. But the two sides also disagreed on whether the case was "ripe" for the Supreme Court's review at all. In its filing, Surfrider said the case wasn't ripe, because "the property owner has not applied for a permit to gain the relief they seek."
In reply, Khosla's legal team said their case revolved around private property rights, writing, "There is simply nothing unripe about having the government in your backyard or strangers on your property."
With the Supreme Court declining to take the case, the road to the beach must remain open to the public. Khosla still has the option of pursuing a Coastal Development Permit to change the status of the area along the beach.
Beach Lover
Does that mean that we rednecks can go back to some of the beaches that we used to enjoy? Can we now hang out on the beach at Seaside, Rosemary Beach and other places in South Walton?
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