Gulf Coast property owners sue Texas officials over seized private land
(The Center Square) – Texas property owners have sued General Land Office Commissioner George P. Bush and Attorney General Ken Paxton, alleging Bush violated state and federal law when he issued an order that “unconstitutionally and illegally takes, seizes, and deprives the plaintiffs of real property.”
The plaintiffs are represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, which filed their case, Sheffield v. Bush, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Under longstanding Texas law, the state owns the areas of beaches between the average low and high tide lines. The land inland of the mean high tide line, which includes lots like those owned by the plaintiffs, is privately owned.
However, after Hurricane Laura and Tropical Storm Beta hit, instead of proposing ways to restore wiped out public beaches, like dredging or implementing other environmental measures in the Galveston area, Bush confiscated private land to extend access to public beach, according to the lawsuit.
On March 29, Bush unilaterally decreed that all land located 200 feet from the mean low tide line was a public beach. No local input or public comment period was given, the lawsuit maintains, and property owners were given no prior notice or compensation.
The GLO says it “conducted extensive beach surveys following the storms and determined that the line of vegetation had been completely obliterated in certain areas” after the storms and issued the order under the authority of Texas Natural Resource Code Sections 61.0171 and 61.0185.
The order suspends the determination of the line of vegetation for two years and suspends certain enforcement actions for removal of houses on the public beach for three years in Surfside and in parts of Galveston in order “to give the beach and dune system time to recover naturally from the meteorological events and establish a new line of vegetation.”
Plaintiffs Charles Sheffield and Merry Porter own beachfront homes as retirement investments and rental income in Surfside Beach, a town situated on Follet’s Island by the Gulf of Mexico. They argue the order increases their liability, erodes their privacy rights, and limits their ability to use and repair their properties. They also were never offered any compensation for their land being taken, they say.
“While protecting legitimate public beach access rights, through legitimate means, may be a laudable state goal, Defendant officials may not turn private lots into a ‘public beach’ open for unfettered public use, by the stroke of a pen, and thereby take Plaintiffs’ property rights without just compensation, due process, or reasonable predeprivation procedures, and in violation of the Act,” the complaint states.
The order extends public access onto private property for two years. The new line to be drawn by surveyors now means “that a limited number of homes are now partially or wholly located on the public beach,” according to the GLO order.
The order and enforcement of it applies within the Surfside Beach village limits and in the city of Galveston from the western terminus of the Seawall west to 13 Mile Road.
J. David Breemer, a senior attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, said Bush’s order is illegal. The state can acquire public beach access easements on private land only by first proving a public right in a court of law or by purchasing the property – according to state law and affirmed by a 2012 Texas Supreme Court decision in Severance v. Patterson, he argues.
Breemer argues that Bush and others “must abandon this illegal attempt to grab private coastal property for public use without just compensation, due process, or respect for Texas law.”
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