Waterfront property owners have gone to a federal appeals court after a judge last month sided with the Pinellas County town of Redington Beach in a dispute about public beach access.
A notice of appeal, filed Tuesday, does not detail arguments that the group of property owners will make at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But the property owners are challenging a ruling by U.S. District Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington that said the town had adequately shown a history of “customary use” by the public of parts of the beach that are privately owned.
Covington upheld a 2018 ordinance that sought to protect customary use of what are known as “dry sand areas” of the beach for such activities as walking, sunbathing, fishing and building sand castles.
The waterfront property owners argued that the ordinance was an unconstitutional “taking” of their private property.
“The ordinance does not purport to ‘take’ the portion of dry sand beach in the town owned by plaintiffs,” Covington wrote in the Aug. 12 ruling. “Rather, it purports to recognize and protect the customary use rights of those residents who have gained, through custom, the right to make certain uses of that privately-owned beach.”