Common Sense and Private Property

[groovedaddy]

Not a single Supreme Court justice agreed with the harebrained notion that some Florida property owners were entitled to the extra land created when the state widened the beach in front of their houses.

But in an opinion issued Thursday, four justices came very close to creating an equally harebrained precedent: that a court decision about the application of a state’s property laws can amount to a “taking” of private property, as if a city or state had confiscated it.

The case was brought after the state began adding sand to miles of eroded beaches in Florida’s panhandle. Homeowners said they should have exclusive access to the newly created beach, but the Florida Supreme Court said in 2008 that the owners had rights only to the old land. The owners said that would bring unwanted visitors, damaging their property values, and demanded compensation as a result of the court’s decision.

When their demand went to the United States Supreme Court, it was championed by leaders of the “property rights” movement, who are somehow convinced that the government, courts included, are bent on the confiscation of too much private property. At last, the movement thought it might have a chance at achieving its dream ruling: that courts — along with cities, states and Washington — are required to compensate property owners for adverse decisions based on their reading of a state property law.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/opinion/18fri1.html?th&emc=th

[county worker]

1. Here in CA we have a Coastal Commission and land owners by law must provide public access to the

beach. From the mean high tide line to the green belt is public land.

I remember going to the beach in FL and everyone was crowded onto what ever public beach there was. We have miles of undeveloped beach and I am glad it is that way.

[groovedaddy]

2. Amen! n.t