Facts
- After Hurricane Opal (1995), beaches in Walton County and Destin were designated “critically eroded.”
- Walton County and the City of Destin sought permits from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) under Florida’s Beach and Shore Preservation Act to restore approximately 6.9 miles of Gulf shoreline.
- The project would place substantial sand seaward of the existing mean high-water line (MHWL), creating new dry land between some upland parcels and the water.
- Under the Act, an erosion control line (ECL) is established at the pre-project MHWL and becomes the fixed boundary between private uplands and state-owned lands for the project area.
- Title to land seaward of the ECL (including newly created beach) vests in the State; upland owners retain title landward of the ECL.
- Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. (STBR), representing beachfront (littoral) owners, asserted the Act eliminated constitutionally protected littoral rights by preventing direct “contact” with the water and cutting off rights to future accretions.
- STBR lost in administrative proceedings; the First District Court of Appeal held the Act and project, as applied, caused an uncompensated taking of littoral rights and certified a question to the Florida Supreme Court.
Issues
- On its face, does the Beach and Shore Preservation Act unconstitutionally deprive upland owners of littoral rights without just compensation?
- Do Florida littoral owners have a protected property right to (a) a boundary that always moves with the MHWL and (b) all future accretions, even when the shoreline change results from a state-sponsored renourishment project?
- Does fixing an ECL and vesting the newly created seaward land in the State effect a taking if statutory protections preserve access, use, and view?
Decision
- The Florida Supreme Court rephrased the certified question as a facial challenge and answered it in the negative.
- The Court quashed the First District’s decision.
- The Court held the Act, on its face, does not take littoral property without compensation because the renourishment is treated as an avulsive addition on state-owned submerged lands, and the statute preserves core littoral rights.
Legal Principles
- Florida holds title, in trust for the public, to lands permanently submerged beneath navigable waters and the foreshore; the ordinary boundary between private littoral property and state land is the MHWL.
- Littoral rights include access to the water, reasonable use of the water, and unobstructed view; these rights do not include an absolute right to maintain uninterrupted physical adjacency to the water against state action.
- Accretion and reliction (gradual, imperceptible shoreline change) generally inure to the littoral owner; avulsion (sudden shoreline change) leaves the private boundary at the pre-event line.
- A state-engineered beach renourishment that places sand on state-owned submerged lands may be treated as avulsion for boundary and title purposes.
- Because littoral owners have no vested right to future accretions resulting from avulsive additions on state-owned submerged lands, a statute fixing the boundary at the pre-project MHWL via an ECL and vesting seaward title in the State is not, on its face, a taking where access, use, and view are preserved.
Conclusion
The Florida Supreme Court held that Florida’s Beach and Shore Preservation Act is facially constitutional because it operates consistently with Florida’s accretion–avulsion doctrine and public ownership of submerged lands: the State may retain title to renourished land seaward of a fixed ECL without paying compensation, so long as core littoral rights of access, use, and view remain protected.