Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - Closest beach
Thread: Closest beach
View Single Post
 
Old 05-15-2012, 07:06 PM
JLHart JLHart is offline
Member
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 77
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shimpy View Post
Actually from what I've read, the beach from the high tide water line to the water is free to anyone for the entire state of Florida. Hotels will try to make it seem that it is private beach, but in fact they don't own past high tide water line into the ocean. Of course you can't set up a blanket above that point as they do own it.
Not exactly true .... the beach from the "mean high tide line" (that is a 1 year average of the daily high tide line) to the ocean is owned (in most cases) by The State of Florida. From that same mean high tide line to "The Coastal Setback Line" (this is the line in front of which construction can not take place and the location of this line varies by municipality / county but they must have one by State statute) is owned by that same municipality / county.

Now how they enforce that "ownership" is up to each respective municipality / county. In some cases they do allow private business to act as owner agents, allowing them to "own" a portion of the beach. Thankfully, this ridiculous "ownership" is becoming less and less common and is pretty much only a S. Fla thing these days.

Their are same cases were the beach is all Federal land. Such as The Canaveral National Seashore. Or State land, such as various ocean front State Parks ... or even municipality / county land, again various ocean front parks. In most of these cases a fee is required to enter the park .... that is a park entrance fee and not a beach access fee as such.