## Facts

- Gregory and Diane Nies bought an oceanfront lot in the Town of Emerald Isle in 2001 that included part of the dry sand beach landward of the mean high water mark.
- The Town had a longstanding practice of allowing and regulating public beach use, including pedestrian and vehicular use, by ordinance.
- A 2003 beach nourishment project extended the beach seaward and shifted the mean high water mark affecting oceanfront boundaries.
- In 2010, the Town adopted ordinances that (1) reserved a 20-foot-wide strip of dry sand beach immediately seaward of the frontal dunes for Town and emergency vehicles and (2) continued regulated public vehicular and pedestrian access in designated beach zones, including areas within some private record boundaries.
- The Nieses alleged the ordinances effectively authorized public driving/parking on their privately owned dry sand and imposed a continuous vehicular easement without compensation, constituting an inverse condemnation and takings violations.
- The trial court granted summary judgment for the Town on all claims, and the Nieses appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether, under North Carolina law, the dry sand beach landward of the mean high water mark is subject to public trust rights despite private fee ownership.
2. Whether the Town’s ordinances reserving an emergency vehicle lane and regulating public vehicular and pedestrian access within the Nieses’ deeded boundaries effected a compensable taking (including by inverse condemnation) under federal and state takings protections.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for the Town.
- The court held that public trust rights in North Carolina extend to the dry sand beach and include pedestrian and vehicular access associated with traditional beach use.
- The challenged ordinances were treated as reasonable regulation of preexisting public trust uses under the Town’s police power, not as a new appropriation of private property.
- Because the property was already burdened by public trust rights when purchased, the ordinances did not create a compensable physical occupation or a total regulatory taking.

## Legal Principles

- North Carolina recognizes both public trust lands and public trust rights; public trust rights may extend beyond areas owned by the State.
- Public trust rights include traditional public uses of the ocean beach across its usable breadth, including the dry sand area landward of the mean high water mark.
- A municipality may reasonably regulate public trust uses for management and safety (including emergency access) as an exercise of police power.
- No compensable taking occurs when regulation merely manages existing public trust burdens on title rather than imposing a new property interest or eliminating all economically beneficial use.
- Reasonable investment-backed expectations for oceanfront owners are limited by background principles of state property law, including the public trust doctrine.

## Conclusion

The court upheld municipal ordinances reserving an emergency vehicle lane and regulating public beach use on dry sand areas within private deed lines, ruling that longstanding public trust rights burdened the property and that the Town’s measures were a reasonable police-power regulation rather than a compensable taking.


Nies v. Town of Emerald Isle, 244 N.C. App. 81, 780 S.E.2d 187 (2015)