A special legislative commission recently reached a consensus on a potential solution to a decadeslong conflict over shoreline access in Rhode Island, but a group of coastal homeowners argues that the proposal represents a taking of private land that will end up in a court battle with an “astronomical” cost to state taxpayers.
The commission’s proposal would allow the public the right to access the shoreline within 10 feet above the high tide line in front of privately held property. But many coastal property owners say that area is still their land.
“We think this is a major encroachment,” said Christopher Boyle, a spokesperson for a nonprofit group called the Shoreline Taxpayers Association for Respectful Traverse, Environmental Responsibility and Safety Inc. “It’s nothing different than if the state wanted to build a highway and took someone’s property. And the state would have to pay for it.
“I think any reasonable person would assume that would be an astronomical figure when you look at the amount of shoreline we have in Rhode Island,” he said.
The shoreline access legislation is expected to be filed soon, said House Minority Leader Blake A. Filippi, R-New Shoreham, who co-chaired the commission.
If passed, the measure would replace a complicated precedent set in a 1982 R.I. Supreme Court decision that determined the public is allowed to access all land that’s within the mean high tide line, the average from 18.6 years of high water elevation data from daily tidal gauges.
It’s a rule that has been a source of confusion for law enforcement and has been at the center of disputes involving private property owners and people trying to enjoy the shoreline in front of private homes. In one case, the 2019 arrest of shoreline access advocate Scott Keeley in Charlestown resulted in a $25,000 legal settlement in his favor against the town.
Filippi said he’s confident that the coastal access bill derived from the commission’s review of the issue will not constitute a taking of private land.
“He’s just wrong,” Filippi said of Boyle’s claims that landowners will be entitled to compensation. “That’s the fear tactic being used to perpetuate the denial of Rhode Island citizens’ right to use the shore.”
Filippi and people on his side of the argument, including Dennis Nixon, professor emeritus of marine affairs at the University of Rhode Island, have argued that keeping coastal access within the bounds of the mean high tide line runs against state constitutional rights because dynamic shifts from wind and wave energy can sometimes push water over the mean high tide line to a knee-deep level.
“If their position is that the property owners’ land goes out into the water, then the public’s constitutional rights are illusory at best,” Filippi said. “That’s not ... reasonable.”
Nixon said the proposal by the commission “restores” shoreline access rights defined in the Rhode Island Constitution since 1843, when farmers used ox carts on the beach to gather seaweed for fertilizer. A 1986 constitutional convention approved by an “overwhelming” majority of state voters solidified those rights, stating that people could gather seaweed, go fishing, leave the shore to swim and pass along the coast, Nixon said.
“I would argue the [R.I.] Supreme Court ... inadvertently took the public’s rights away in 1982,” Nixon said. “Let’s go ahead and litigate it. I think we have the facts on the public’s side.”
Boyle said an unnamed national property rights organization is watching the legislative proposal and will be ready to file a lawsuit on behalf of coastal Rhode Island homeowners.
“The taxpayers would be on the hook,” he said.
Marc Larocque is a PBN staff writer. Contact him at Larocque@PBN.com.
