(Annual repost) MA needs easement for seashore walks *below* tide line.

[ This is a repost of the following article: ]
[ From: Hugo S. Cunningham <checkwebsite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> ]
[ Subject: (Annual repost) MA needs easement for seashore walks *below* tide line. ]
[ Newsgroups: ne.general,ne.politics ]
[ Message-ID: <vv06c11q9j54cp3aaos76vnhr5i866lfgq@xxxxxxx> ]

A google search will show that I have posted this (or something like
it) on some previous summers.

--H.S.C.


Massachusetts is the only State in the Union (apart from Maine,
formerly part of Massachusetts, which inherited the same law) where
oceanside property rights extend out beyond the high water mark, to
the *low* water mark. Property abutters can (and often do) prevent
peaceable citizens from walking along the shore below the high tide
mark. Former MA Senate President William Bulger tried to modify this,
but since he moved into the academic world, the issue has been
dormant.

I propose a *long-term* buy-out (eminent domain) of oceanside
tidal-zone walking rights. The people of the Commonwealth as a whole
would be much better off, if they were able to walk along the
oceanside high-tide mark (or even up to about 10 feet inland) during
daylight hours, provided
(1) they have to keep moving,
(2) they carry no intoxicating substance either inside or outside
their bodies,
(3) they behave peaceably and quietly in all other ways,
(4) they leave no litter, and
(5) there is a credible police and court system vigorously
enforcing items 1 through 4.

Those benefitting from an oceanside walk easement would include even
many shoreside property owners, those more interested in being able to
walk along the shore than with hunkering down on a small piece of
shore.

An immediate eminent-domain seizure of oceanside tideline
walk-easements would quite likely be expensive, even taking into
account compensating *increases* in shoreside property values from
access to desirable shore walks. Furthermore, it would infuriate some
property-holders more than the trouble is worth.

Both expense and opposition would be drastically reduced, however,
if the Legislature took a statemanlike, long-term approach: seizure
of oceanside walk-easements, effective 100 years in the *future* (but
payable *now*). As any financial planner can tell you, the
"discounted present value" of something 100 years in the future is
next to nothing. Today's Legislators could, for chump change, be
forever blessed for their vision by future generations, 100 years and
later.

Indeed, some fruits of a walk-easement policy could start to show
up much sooner. Once courts settled on a credible formula for valuing
future walk-easements, the Legislature could select smaller portions
of the oceanfront for accelerated easement seizure, in 50, 25, or even
10 years, with appropriate increases in compensation. They could also
prescribe buyouts and/or property-tax advantages for oceanside
property holders willing to give a walk-easement early.

Later note:
Current law allows transit below the tide line for those "fishing or
fowling." A birdwatching group has suggested their non-lethal
activity qualifies for legal protection as "fowling"; I am not sure
whether any court has agreed, or whether the question even went that
far.

--Hugo S. Cunningham

--
Words are flying out like endless rain into a paper cup.
They slither while they pass. They slip away across the universe.

--John Lennon
.