Does Oregon Really Have 100% Public Beaches? (Coquille: house, to live in, law)
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Does Oregon really have 100% public beaches. By public I mean beaches that the public can actually use. Not public beaches that only local residents can use. Which seem to be far more common than beaches that everybody can use.
What got me thinking about this were some posts in another thread from people who had never been to Oregon but had heard about how great the public beach access is in Oregon. Which doesn't really surprise me, because I have always heard Oregonians brag about how beaches in Oregon are 100% public. Like the beaches in Washington and California are all private. Which I have never seen to be the case.
In Washington there are public beach approaches all over the place that allow you to drive your car onto the beach anywhere. About the only places you can't drive your car on the beaches in Washington are in environmentally sensitive areas, and people seem to pretty much ignore those bans anyway.
In California I have seen many places where you can just park your car on the side of Highway 1, walk 20 feet and you are standing in the surf. I've seen surfers in California jump out of their cars, grab their surfboards, change into their gear and be in the water literally two minutes after parking.
In Oregon yes there are some good public beaches, if you are in the right spots. But if you are in the wrong spot, good luck finding any public beach access. You will have to do some searching, and when you do find a public access point, which are few and far between, it's probably just a narrow corridor, with just enough room for a dozen cars to park. So get there early.
Case in point. Below is a picture of the Cape Arago Lighthouse. I live near it, but I have never actually seen it personally. Not that I haven't tried. Google Maps shows that you can drive right out to it. But in the real world when I tried to do it, there are signs on the road saying, "DEAD END" and "No Public Access To Lighthouse". Yes I tried to drive down the road anyway. Eventually you come to an electronic gate, that only residents can get through.
So the question is, how can you have a lighthouse on a public beach, that the public can't even see, let alone get to?
The interesting thing is that I have seen old pictures of the lighthouse. It was once a major tourist attraction with large tourist facilities and viewpoints. But at some point the tourist facilities were torn down and replaced with a private development, and access to the lighthouse and the beach was cut off.
Could we please just go back to private beaches that the public could visit, instead of public beaches that the public can't even get close to? "Public beach" in Oregon is an oxymoron.
Hey, maybe the government should provide you with a palanquin to carry you to places that you can't drive right up to. I'm sorry to learn that you can't walk. You've been brave and keeping that a secret.
I do notice, in your photo, that the light house isn't actually on a beach.
Hey, maybe the government should provide you with a palanquin to carry you to places that you can't drive right up to. I'm sorry to learn that you can't walk. You've been brave and keeping that a secret.
I do notice, in your photo, that the light house isn't actually on a beach.
The only way for non residents to walk close enough to even see the lighthouse would be, 1. Climb over somebody's fence, trespass through their yard and use their private steps to get down to the beach. 2. Maybe try to walk in the surf at low tide from Sunset Bay about a half mile south. But the rocks and violent waves would make that option extremely dangerous, if it was even possible.
Here is a image from state park land to the north. This would be the closest public access point after Susset Bay. Does this look like something you would want to try to walk in or over?
Have you ever read the actual 1967 law commonly referred to as the "Beach Bill"? Somehow, I doubt it. How the law defines "public", "beach", and "access" may be enlightening. You are complaining about being able to access OR's public beach. Access to is not the same thing as the beach itself. What the law defines as a public beach is the ocean shore seaward of the line of existing vegetation regardless of ownership. This does not mean that the public can access that public strand from anywhere it wants. Private property can and does extend up to that line of unvegetated shoreline. Of course, how does one define "line of existing vegetation"? Vague language like this is the bane of public law. Someone is tasked with interpreting it into reality. You as a member of the public say the law grants you rights. That may be true, but the law also recognizes the rights of existing landowners who own property inland of that line of vegetation. Not to mention that that line of vegetation is forever shifting. Unfortunately, unless and until the law is superseded or amended by subsequent case law, everyone is stuck trying to interpret and work within it.
Technically, if you started walking the shoreline at OR's southern border seaward of the line of existing vegetation, you could remain on public beach until you reached its northern border. You could technically reach that same public beach seaward of the line of existing vegetation by approaching it from the water by landing a boat. Obviously, reality steps in and makes your hike impossible in some areas.
The law also establishes policies for how access to public beaches is inventoried, evaluated, managed, and maintained. As is true about so many things in life, the devil lives in the details. The mechanics that dictate every existing access point to OR's beaches matter.
If you really want to wade into the weeds (yep, that phrase was deliberately chosen) about your so-called lack of beach access, I'd suggest you contact the state entities that deal with Oregon's coast and ask for details about every piece of beach strand along the coast. What you can and cannot do in every site will be very specific:
As for the example of Cape Arago lighthouse, according to the photo you chose to provide, it stands inland of the now infamous line of existing vegetation and that will dictate landward access to it!
Last edited by Parnassia; 09-10-2023 at 01:34 PM..
Have you ever read the actual 1967 law commonly referred to as the "Beach Bill"? Somehow, I doubt it. How the law defines "public", "beach", and "access" may be enlightening. You are complaining about being able to access OR's public beach. Access to is not the same thing as the beach itself. What the law defines as a public beach is the ocean shore seaward of the line of existing vegetation regardless of ownership. This does not mean that the public can access that public strand from anywhere it wants. Private property can and does extend up to that line of unvegetated shoreline. Of course, how does one define "line of existing vegetation"? Vague language like this is the bane of public law. Someone is tasked with interpreting it into reality. You as a member of the public say the law grants you rights. That may be true, but the law also recognizes the rights of existing landowners who own property inland of that line of vegetation. Not to mention that that line of vegetation is forever shifting. Unfortunately, unless and until the law is superseded or amended by subsequent case law, everyone is stuck trying to interpret and work within it.
Technically, if you started walking the shoreline at OR's southern border seaward of the line of existing vegetation, you could remain on public beach until you reached its northern border. You could technically reach that same public beach seaward of the line of existing vegetation by approaching it from the water by landing a boat. Obviously, reality steps in and makes your hike impossible in some areas.
The law also establishes policies for how access to public beaches is inventoried, evaluated, managed, and maintained. As is true about so many things in life, the devil lives in the details. The mechanics that dictate every existing access point to OR's beaches matter.
If you really want to wade into the weeds (yep, that phrase was deliberately chosen) about your so-called lack of beach access, I'd suggest you contact the state entities that deal with Oregon's coast and ask for details about every piece of beach strand along the coast. What you can and cannot do in every site will be very site specific:
As for the example of Cape Arago lighthouse, according to your photo, it stands inland of the now infamous line of existing vegetation and so would reasonable landward access to it!
Your link is about Oregon's Ocean Beach Access Plan. Which I would argue is a total failure. Oregon has the worst public beach access on the West Coast, and probably the entire country.
What's most irritating is Oregon bragging that this state is somehow special for having public beaches like every single other state doesn't have them too. The only debate about public beaches is where they put the line. Other states use they same rules as Oregon. Hell, Texas had a Beach Bill well before Oregon did. There is nothing remarkable about Oregon's Beach Bill.
So you're luckyy enough to live in an area with abundant natural beauty, and at the taxpayers' expense, I may add, yet you still find something to complain about.
There are plenty of easily accessible beaches where you're at. No one in Oregon ever said that every single beach comes with an easy access trail.
It's my understanding that this particular lighthouse belongs to the Coquille tribe; can't really blame them for not wanting the responsibility of maintaining a trail and parking spots so that people can traispse down to the beach.
So you're luckyy enough to live in an area with abundant natural beauty, and at the taxpayers' expense, I may add, yet you still find something to complain about.
There are plenty of easily accessible beaches where you're at. No one in Oregon ever said that every single beach comes with an easy access trail.
It's my understanding that this particular lighthouse belongs to the Coquille tribe; can't really blame them for not wanting the responsibility of maintaining a trail and parking spots so that people can traispse down to the beach.
Actually the lighthouse is owned by Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw, not the Coquille. But that is not the point. They don't own the beach, and neither do the homeowners on the mainland. The beach is essentially a private beach for the home owners in a state that prides itself on public beaches.
Coastal Oregon is a sight to behold. The beaches are pristine even if you can't walk on all of them. Given the terrain, providing access would be expensive to provide, not to mention other amenities required by humans who will otherwise trash those beaches.
As an inland-Oregon resident, I say leave the beaches as they are. The beaches with good public access are rarely, if ever, crowded anyway.
Actually the lighthouse is owned by Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw, not the Coquille. But that is not the point. They don't own the beach, and neither do the homeowners on the mainland. The beach is essentially a private beach for the home owners in a state that prides itself on public beaches.
Point still stands; the tribe doesn't have an obligation to maintain a trail and provide parking.
Coastal Oregon is a sight to behold. The beaches are pristine even if you can't walk on all of them. Given the terrain, providing access would be expensive to provide, not to mention other amenities required by humans who will otherwise trash those beaches.
As an inland-Oregon resident, I say leave the beaches as they are. The beaches with good public access are rarely, if ever, crowded anyway.
They trash them already. I rarely even visited the beach when I lived in a coastal community because though they may have looked clean from a distance, there was always trash hidden among the rocks, grasses, and driftwood.
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