The Public’s Radio — Judge sides with property owners in blow to new shoreline access law

The shoreline pictured in Narragansett. Alex Nunes / The Public’s Radio

July 15, 2024

By Alex Nunes — Two lawsuits are challenging a law enacted in 2023 that sets a new definition for the public trust shoreline in Rhode Island.

A Rhode Island Superior Court judge says the state’s new shoreline access law has resulted in the unconstitutional taking of private beachfront property without just compensation to landowners.

In two decisions filed Friday, Associate Justice Sarah Taft-Carter denied Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha’s motion to throw out cases brought by property owners in South Kingstown and Westerly. The plaintiffs in each case claim the law signed in 2023 violates the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by authorizing a public easement that invades their property without paying them for their losses. 

The new law outlines the area where members of the public are allowed to exercise their shoreline rights under the Rhode Island Constitution as the recognizable high tide line — also known as the “wrack line” or “seaweed line” — plus 10 feet landward. Prior to Gov. Dan McKee signing the law, Rhode Island followed the boundary of the mean high tide line, a complicated formula outlined by the 1982 Rhode Island Supreme Court ruling in a case called State v. Ibbison and not easily discernible to beachgoers.

In the South Kingstown case, Stilts, LLC v. Rhode Island, Taft-Carter wrote the change reduced property owner David Welch’s “bundle of rights,” which includes the right to exclude others. She called it “an unconstitutional taking.”

Taft-Carter’s decisions clear the way for the lawsuits to continue. They do not resolve either case or prevent the state from enforcing the new shoreline access law. 

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