Walton County Board of Commissioners Discusses House Bill 1622 on Beach Customary Use

Walton County   During the most recent meeting of the Walton County Board of County Commissioners (BCC), at the behest of BCC Vice Chair Dan Curry, Interim County Attorney Clay Adkinson gave board members his legal interpretation of House Bill 1622 regarding customary use of the beaches, which was recently passed by the Florida Legislature.

Attorney Adkinson stated, “So, to directly answer your question, what happens on day one after the governor signs this bill? The simple answer is, legally, nothing changes on the Walton County beaches.”

Adkinson reminded everyone that the Walton County Customary Use case had been scheduled for trial in the summer of 2023. Certain parts of the case were settled while certain parts of the case were dismissed. However, certain parts of the case were tried through summary judgment proceedings, with judgments entered in January and February of 2024.

“The Legislature has repealed a prior bill that passed – but the Legislature does not undo the legal significance of that case,” said Adkinson. “So, it’s very important to recognize that this bill has a profound effect on any city or county in the state of Florida for which customary use litigation has not already occurred. But for Walton County, ours has,” he added. “And so, what happens on day one? Nothing.”

However, Adkinson noted that the bill does have immeasurable impact and opens the door on what this board has already discussed was its ultimate intention – to look at having as much of a uniform set of public use rights on our beaches as possible.

Public Access and the Erosion Control Line

“We broadly have that in Miramar Beach, from Topsail to the county line going to Okaloosa. That’s because there’s an erosion control line (ECL) that was established following a beach restoration or beach renourishment project,” said Adkinson. “When that ECL was established by state law, all lands lying seaward of that ECL inured to the state and the benefit of the public. That case has been litigated and gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court from Walton County and Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Walton County and Florida DEP prevailed.”

In other words, the public has a right to be seaward of that ECL. Walton County does not generally allow vending seaward of the ECL. Current vending permits also prohibit such activity. If a vendor is acting to remove or block the public, just in general, from land seaward of the ECL, they are out of bounds.

Impact of House Bill 1622

So, what did the bill do? Attorney Adkinson stated that the bill recognized that Walton County has a ‘critically eroded’ shoreline. More importantly, the bill recognized that the state has officially taken the position that it does not require the inclusion of a public dedication or a public easement as part of any beach restoration project.

Adkinson further explained, “It’s very well-known that the county has over $60 million allocated from one of our beach renourishment (sales tax) pennies; there’s over $60 million of federal funds allocated to match that for our hurricane storm damage reduction plan.”

Current Status and Future Plans

So, where are we now? Adkinson explained that, because of prior direction from the board, “the county is continuing to move forward on our hurricane storm damage reduction plan and all beach restoration or renourishment opportunities, under the very simple concept that if there is not a beach to use, because it goes away in a storm, there is necessarily going to be no public use rights. But the more beach there is, especially with an ECL, all those lands seaward create more public use rights,” he said.

“So, what this bill does for Walton County specifically, is creates a path for us to work toward renourishment, restoration, and similar terms, that would establish an ECL, hopefully from county line to county line, so that we can make use of those federal monies before they expire,” he said, “and that we can do so without the hurdles that previously blocked this type of project from happening back in 2016.”

Clarifying the ECL

Adkinson then answered questions about the establishment of a definitive ECL and how both the public and law enforcement would be able to ascertain where the ECL is without additional markers or signs.

“We did just go through a very detailed survey process and are actively uploading that survey data … Based on the new survey – because we have more data points – such as where a boardwalk stops and we can now measure more footage, we can dial that number in. The idea is, we want to shrink that (+/-) 15 feet (margin of error) to get it almost as exact as possible,” he replied.

Adkinson went on to say, “That ECL was established well over a decade ago. We’re getting back almost 20 years ago now. What we’re doing now by having these data points on the surveys … is the ECL that will be established as part of any future project, is going to have a higher level of definition attached to it than what was previous. A lot has changed in the last 17 or 18 years … but once that GIS data set is uploaded, I think its going to dial it in even tighter than Miramar Beach and we’re going to have less margin of error.”

Conclusion Adkinson concluded by saying, “This, for us, is not the first step in re-establishing and restoring public use rights across more of our beaches – we have already taken those first steps – but this is a huge assist from our legislative delegation in the Florida Legislature to help us with that.”