Florida Law Threatening Public Beach Access Faces Strong Opposition

A new Florida law going into effect this summer is creating concern that many of the state’s beloved beaches could become off-limits to the public.

However, the Tampa Bay Times reports that visitors shouldn’t necessarily stress over HB 631, which prevents local governments from adopting ordinances to allow continued public entry to privately-owned beaches without a judge’s approval, including when a property owner wants to block off their land.

Scheduled to go into effect July 1, the bill faces strong opposition from the Florida Wildlife Federation, the Surfrider Foundation and the Florida Association of Counties, among many others.

A Care2 petition to keep Florida’s beaches public has already received nearly 55,000 signatures, including more than 10,000 in the Sunshine State. “Beaches are an integral part of Florida’s tourism and should be open for all to enjoy,” the petition reads. “This new law will put even more power in the hands of landowners to further restrict where, when and how people can access the beach.”

While 60 percent of Florida’s 660-plus miles of beach property is privately owned, “beach access ordinances are based on a legal principle called “customary use,” defined as the traditional use of dry beach sand for public recreation, even on private property,” according to the Times.

The publication reported that the Florida Supreme Court has ruled that the local government can cite “customary use” to allow a beach to remain open to the public in the event that a private property owner attempts to install a fence or calls police to eject beachgoers who have been using the beach for years—assuming the use has been “ancient, reasonable, without interruption and free from dispute.”

Beaches that are a part of Florida’s state park system are guaranteed to remain open to the public and Miami Beach will be unaffected by the new law since the entire beachfront is owned by the state.

According to the Times, ordinances enacted by St. Johns and Volusia counties were left standing and the only beach access ordinance being abolished is in Walton County along the Florida Panhandle, where notable homeowners include former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and ex-White House adviser Karl Rove.

“Our very livelihood depends on everyone having access to our greatest natural resource,” Destin-based real estate agent Alice Duncan wrote Florida Gov. Rick Scott via the Times. “Please, please veto this. Not everyone can own a beachfront mansion.”

Although the bill has left many either upset or confused, the Brevard County Natural Resources Management Department’s beach management coordinator, Mike McGarry recommends a wait and see approach.

“I would say: ‘Watch what happens, and make sure the public access to the beaches remains intact,'” McGarry told Florida Today. “But the circumstances haven’t actually appreciably changed, in my view, from what they were.”

Florida is coming off of a banner year for tourism in 2017 in which it hosted an estimated 116.5 million visitors.

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