Pace Environmental Law Review Volume 20 Article 13 Issue 1 Symposium Edition January 2003 The Beach Zone: Using Local Land Use Authority to Preserve Barrier Islands Jessica VanTine Tiffany B. Zezula Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/pelr Recommended Citation Jessica VanTine and Tiffany B. Zezula, The Beach Zone: Using Local Land Use Authority to Preserve Barrier Islands , 20 Pace Envtl. L. Rev. 299 (2003) Available at: http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/pelr/vol20/iss1/13 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Law at DigitalCommons@Pace. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pace Environmental Law Review by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Pace. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. The Beach Zone: Using Local Land Use Authority to Preserve Barrier Islands JESSICA VANTINE & TIFFANY B. ZEZULA* INTRODUCTION We often love to think now of the life of men on beaches,-at least in midsummer, when the weather is serene; their sunny lives on the sand, amid the beach-grass and the bayberries, their companion a cow, their wealth a jag of driftwood or a few beach plums, and their music the surf and the peep of the beech- bird. - Henry David Thoreau' For ages, the American people have treasured the aesthetic and recreational value of beaches. The beachfront is a place of insurmountable beauty, serenity, and grandeur. Many Americans escape to beaches in order to visit a place of remarkable biological diversity. Today, however, we face the bleak prospect of perma- nently losing our treasured beaches to a wave of development, particularly fostered by a lack of informed land-use decisions.