‘Get off my sand?’: Coastal homeowners sue over shoreline law, but state is prepared to fight – the Providence Journal

Lighthouse, Point Judith, Rhode Island (by Ed Schipul CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr).

Coastal property owners have filed a federal lawsuit to overturn Rhode Island’s new shoreline-access law. The suit claims that the new legislation, which allows the public to use the shoreline up to 10 feet inland of the seaweed line, amounts to an unconstitutional taking under the Fifth Amendment. It comes as little surprise: Opponents of the new law, some whom are involved with the suit, had made clear that they intended to challenge it in court…