Beaches and Private Property Rights

I grew up at GRB and my sister and her husband have a cottage there that has been in his family for generations. They rent it to cover the taxes, maintenance etc. GRB is different than most beaches in Maine in that a lot of cottages are on the beach, not across the road like Kennebunk Beach. Parking is very limited. I personally hope the landowners win then maybe people will respect some one's property. Just because it is an ocean beach doesn't mean it is public. You wouldn't go to a lake and put up a tent in front of a cottage would you, or set up camp for the day would you?

Let alone urinate and relieve yourself in someone's yard, and permit your children to do likewise - and when called on same, threaten and use profanity toward the property owner.

The sound of racking the slide of a pump shotgun is often a wonderful reminder of private property rights.

We live on the Beach and we have no problems with trespassers ;-)

Party at Estella's house this weekend!! (Please remember to bring marrow bones for Bowser....).

precisely, estella.

sharks= high hourly rate, dubious outcome.
dogs= kibble, results.

Quote:

...."decades of public beach enjoyment"....

Salt water beaches in front of private property in Maine have not been "public property" since the Maine Supreme Court decision in the "Moody Beach Decision" in the 1980's. There are beaches that are owned by the state and feds that are public but not all beaches are.

It is amazing how many people think something ought to be public just because they want to use it!

I can assure you that the landowners along the saltwater pay the highest taxes in any town in Maine, We know that because we paid them for a few years. Finally, after a few years of bleeding to death financially to keep the taxes paid, we sold it to the local conservation group who allows certain public access. Not wild parties for sure.

Folks who think they ought to have the right to use Goose Rocks Beach ought to get the state to buy it with money for "land for Maine's future". It has been my experience that the public is a darn poor steward of land. Public land near where I live is trashed and garbage strewn, roads are torn all to pieces, parties go on all night. Who wants that mess in front of their home?

Private property ownership is one of the foundations of this nation! And still should be.

Charlie, I despise the fact that taxpayers subsidize flood insurance along the shores and rivers. If a person has no insurance, he should be liable for whatever happens. The people in the Carolinas who build those cottages on pilings on the beach should assume the total risk. The goverment has no business in the insurance field.

WC

It is amazing how many people think something ought to be public just because they want to use it!

I will continue to use any beach I want below the high-tide mark as I always have.

I hope the homeowners lose this one.

Sorry Charlotte, but with the vast advantage of power, money and personal connections on their side, there is little doubt these homeowners will prevail handily . Just remember, they didn't acquire these little gems by being pushovers.

No - instead, most of them acquired these "gems" by being descendants of the folks who first bought the land and built the cottages, some 100 years ago, in many cases. Why, those pushy people, being born to other people! The very idea!!
(snort).

"most of them acquired these "gems" by being descendants of the folks who first bought the land "

You have data to support this unlikely claim?

There's no point, IMHO. You wouldn't accept my hearsay, and the property owners at GRB, by and large, don't go around touting their ancestry in writing. Read Islander's post, above... like him, I know people who grew up at GRB, and most of them inherited their property from family.

Does it make a difference? They own the property just you own yours, do you allow any one to plant thenselves in your yard, use your pool and pee in it (if you have one)? How about some people with lakefront property, can you go to just any place on Sebago Lake, or to public beaches only?

Exactly, Islander. By and large, I believe the GRB property owners aren't asking for any special privileges or rights. Rather, I think it's the public that's looking for special rights, ones they wouldn't take lightly if demanded of them from others, at their own homes.

"Whaddya mean, we should have 'asked first.' Why -- isn't everything
down here public property?"

J. McKane said:

I will continue to use any beach I want below the high-tide mark as I always have.

Yep...just another criminal in Augusta. I thought better of you.

Naran, I am sure that some folks inherited their property from family, although the one owner I happen to know is the CEO of a moderately large technical equipment manufacturer in Boston who purchased it himself for a summer getaway. He doesn't lack the resources I previously mentioned, and I am sure there are others like him at GRB.
The point is that the oceanfront landowners (whether having purchased the property themselves, or having inherited it from family who evidently had better than average resources themselves and more than likely passed much of it along) are most likely in a more influential position to prevail in this situation than your run-of-the-mill, less-blessed beach lover.

deleted

I most sincerely hope they are in a position to prevail. They OWN the property in question, after all.

It's a perception problem, people don't realize or accept that ocean beaches can be private property. Someone here must have a nice place on a lake where me and my friends can come and have a good time for a few days. This issue has been brought about because of people abusing property rights over a long time and also the lack of enforcement.
This reminds me of the border problems we have in the US.

All of these people who want to keep the beach private, should not be looking to the taxpayer when a big storm causes damage to their beach!

Islander,
You miss my point. I'm simply saying that the "gem" owners likey have more resources than the common beach lovers, and so are likely to win this battle.

The beach was not "public property" before the Moody Beach decision either. The decision confirmed that private property on the shore runs to the low tide mark (except for "fishing, fowling, and navigation"), it didn't create new ownership rights.

And isn't it amazing the kind of snarling, vicious hatred and envy they openly reveal under the pretense of self righteousness while they mock, caricature and misrepresent their victims with class warfare demagoguery.

Another example of how the land trusts falsely claiming to respect private property and "willing sellers" are exploiting government coercion to get the land the viros want.

I hope you at least got to keep the house with the view proximate to the water without having to still pay outrageous 'envy' taxes for being so close to the water. The assessed market value of the home must still be a lot higher than normal.

They are already doing that elsewhere. They use the imposition of impossible taxes and other means of coercion and pressure to force the sales to supposedly "private" groups like the Maine Coast Heritage Trust, using tax-payer funding.

These NGOs insist that they only buy from "willing sellers" in the private market, but they are defacto quasi-government agencies collaborating with their cohorts in government, often act as real estate fronts for the government, use money taken from taxpayers, and push people out of their private property for the purpose of abolishing private property as such.

This is the modern "sophisticated" strategy of fascist control adopted so they can clamor that they aren't using "eminent domain" because they know how controversial that is. Their PR pretends that eminent domain is the only means of coercion, and they refer to it in their "talking points" with such emphasis as a distraction from what they are doing.

There is no difference in principle between imposing discriminatory taxes to force people out versus using "Kelo-style" eminent domain to force people to sell to the politically connected, wealthy (including land trusts) or to more wealthy residential buyers who can tolerate paying the ransom of exorbitant "Kelo taxes". Either way the result is that they are driving out and destroying the middle class.

The country as founded will not exist without it. Without private property rights there are no rights in the actual meaning of the concept of rights as freedom of action by the individual. But private property rights depend on individualism, which is being destroyed by a collectivist, welfare state pressure group warfare mentality and envy.

Part of the problem historically is that government insurance at subsidized rates drove private insurance out of the market, so most property owners don't have much choice left but to use government flood insurance in the system they are stuck with.

I don't think that's the case, IMHO, because it's the town of Kennebunkport that's launched a counter-suit. They just appropriated $250K for legal costs, and they're ready to spend more, from what I hear.

a big, nasty dog who has been raised on a steady diet of John Locke.

Don't be silly dear francisz... While it may be true that outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend, it also holds that Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. (h/t Groucho)

Personally I feel people shouldn't be able to own the water or the land under the water, and homeowners should own only to the high water mark. So with beaches, I feel they can own the rocks and up, like this photo here. But not the beach below the high water mark.

People should be able to enjoy the beaches like they have been for centuries, and this also means the beach front owners. If everyone put fences up, signs, separating their beaches, a walk on the beach would only be 100 feet wide.

Some people don't realize that beaches can be privately owned like any other land because they have been propagandized by demagogues who don't want them to know it. But this is worse than a 'perception' problem -- it is a problem of corrupt philosophy denying private property rights in principle, which is applied anywhere they think they can get away with it by fanning envy and resentment.

People with a sensible philosophical outlook don't fall for that and only need to know that the beaches being discussed are in fact private property. Sensible people don't seethe with envy and resentment of other people and they don't reject private property rights. They understand that if property rights can be abrogated in one instance because someone wants to take something someone else has, then this can be done to anyone over anything and we all belong to and are subjugated by the mob. But that requires a level of rational understanding, it isn't just a matter of perception.

ewv - well said. I believe that if the high-water private property rights had been properly observed over the years, this wouldn't be an issue in GRB. I believe that the issue has arisen due to disrespect shown for private property rights, and the reported lack of backup from local law enforcement hasn't helped.

Found this under Title 12 state statutes:

§573. Public trust rights in intertidal land
1. Public trust rights. The public trust rights in intertidal land include the following:
A. The right to use intertidal land for fishing, fowling and navigation; [1985, c. 782, (NEW).]
B. The right to use intertidal land for recreation; and [1985, c. 782, (NEW).]
C. Any other trust rights to use intertidal land recognized by the Maine common law and not specifically abrogated by statute. [1985, c. 782, (NEW).]
2. Limitations. The rights described in subsection 1 do not include:
A. The removal from the intertidal land of any sand, soil, rocks or other minerals; [1985, c. 782, (NEW).]
B. Interference with any structure, development or improvement erected or maintained on intertidal land in accordance with the laws of this State; [1985, c. 782, (NEW).]
C. The depositing of any refuse or waste on intertidal land or in the water covering intertidal land; or [1985, c. 782, (NEW).]
D. Use or operation of motorized vehicles other than navigable watercraft, unless specifically authorized by state law or municipal ordinance. [1985, c. 782, (NEW).]
3. Police powers. Municipalities shall have jurisdiction to exercise their police powers to control public use of intertidal land, except where such exercise is superseded by any state law.
[ 1985, c. 782, (NEW) .]
4. Other public rights. This chapter does not affect public rights in intertidal land arising from custom, prescription, implied dedication, acquiescence or any other source. This chapter does not affect public rights in dry sand areas upland from intertidal land arising from custom, prescription, implied dedication, acquiescence, the public trust doctrine or any other source.

I would think the last sentence (highlighted) is the point of contention on which this whole issue is centered as most, if not all of the beach area at GRB is in private hands.

2. Limitations. The rights described in subsection 1 do not include:
A. The removal from the intertidal land of any sand, soil, rocks or other minerals; [1985, c. 782, (NEW).]

Is sea glass a mineral?

My family was among the original settlers in Deer Isle. The house that we lived in there had been in my mother's family since 1792. Like all the original settler's lots that lot of land had been 100 acres when surveyed for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by John Peters in 1798. By the time my wife and I ended up with it the size had been reduced to 23 acres, but that included about a quarter or a mile on salt water. My grandparents farmed it, milking 15 cows for a living in the 1940's. My mother spent most of her life on it and my grandmother spent all of hers on it.

The taxes were $4,500 by the time we acquired it in the mid 90's. All we were were working people on 40 hr jobs that wanted to sustenance farm on the side as well as keep our horses there as we had for some time. Sen Jill Goldthwait helped me with the paperwork that would have put it into farmland status as far as the taxes go, thus letting a working family keep a piece of the family history.

The first selectman, and chief assessor of Deer Isle screwed us royally with the valuation, he placed it way above what the law specified at the time, and jacked up, by several times, the valuation on other property we owned. To say he was pissed off was the understatement. We tried to find an attorney but attorney's who will take on a municipality on behalf of a taxpayer are rare in Maine as most attorneys do lots of work for municipalities and don't want to get called a turncoat by representing the other side. We didn't want to fight the rest of our lives so we sold it to the Heritage Trust. That was our choice as we had a developer from Falmouth actively bidding on it and could have sold it to him.

We did not want to see it developed so at least my mother, who had been dead for some years, might forgive me at least for that much. And I told the trust at the closing that I hoped that they paid the town just as little in property taxes as they could as it served the town right. I think there is something wrong with the tax policies in this state when working people are driven off their land so that the wealthy can come along and take it over.

There ought to be a different tax status for working Maine folk, trying to stay on the family property. When someone comes along and pays 2 million for something he ought to be taxed for it. I live near Dover now, in what is left of dairy farming country, and the same thing is happening here. No young person can pay the taxes on a hundred acres of land by farming it. So it gets sub-divided and that is the end of farming on that land forever.

So what will Maine do when we wake up some day and find out the only people living here are retirees?

We were paying dearly, for the last few years, for the privelege of owning shorefront property though it's only true value to us was as our home. We had people come along who decided they would use it any time they wanted, just like Mr McKane said earlier. The last one I remember was a hot-shot Connecticut lawyer who, when my wife asked him nicely to leave, told her he was an attorney and knew his stuff and he had every right to be there any time he wanted to be there.

He did NOT come back, either because he found out what the Moody Beach Decision said or maybe it was because my wife told him that if he came back he better be armed because she sure as hell was going to be.

WC