Projo — 'Get off my sand?': Coastal homeowners sue over shoreline law, but state is prepared to fight

East Beach in Charlestown. Under a new Rhode Island law, the public can enjoy the state’s shoreline up to 10 feet inland of the seaweed line, visible at the left edge of this photo. The previous boundary had been the mean high watermark, a highly technical delineation that is sometimes underwater. Coastal property owners are challenging the new law. The Providence Journal, file.

July 7, 2023

By Antonia Noori Farzan — Coastal property owners have filed a federal lawsuit to overturn Rhode Island's new shoreline-access law. The suit claims that the new legislation, which allows the public to use the shoreline up to 10 feet inland of the seaweed line, amounts to an unconstitutional taking under the Fifth Amendment. It comes as little surprise: Opponents of the new law, some whom are involved with the suit, had made clear that they intended to challenge it in court.

"While public beach access may be important to state legislators and officials, they may not simply redefine private shorelands as a 'public beach' by the stroke of a pen, consistent with the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment," the complaint argues.

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