Supreme Court hears Florida beach dispute
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court is weighing whether owners of beachfront homes in Florida must be compensated because a beach-widening project cost them their exclusive access to the Gulf of Mexico.
The justices heard argument Wednesday in a case with potentially widespread implications for coastal communities nationwide that confront beach erosion.
The court is being asked to rule for the first time that a court decision can amount to a taking of property. The Constitution requires governments to pay “just compensation” when they take private property for public use.
Six homeowners in Florida’s panhandle are challenging a Florida Supreme Court decision that changed their “oceanfront property into oceanview property,” their lawyer, D. Kent Safriet, told the court.
The Florida court decision ratified the designation of the new sand along nearly seven miles of storm-battered beach that stretches through the city of Destin and neighboring Walton County as public property, depriving the homeowners of the exclusive beach access they previously enjoyed.
They say the ruling “suddenly and dramatically changed” state law on beach property and caused their property values to decline. The homeowners want the state to pay them undetermined compensation for “taking” their property, which Florida law had long recognized as extending to the water line at high tide.
The court appeared divided about whether the homeowners lost anything.