Connecticut boasts a coastal population density of 3,235 people per square mile, among the highest in the nation. Connecticut faces both unique geologic and development constraints. While 80% of the shoreline is privately owned and only 14% of the Connecticut shoreline is sandy beach. Of the existing coastal public access sites, 16% are privately owned.
According to the State of Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP):The common law public trust doctrine establishes that Connecticut's shore belongs to the people. As such, all coastal states, as sovereigns, hold the submerged lands and waters water. Although much of the Connecticut shore is privately owned, the coastal tidelands actually belong to all the people—not just in terms of our environmental and cultural heritage, but in a specific legal sense as well. In Connecticut, a line of state Supreme Court cases confirm that private ownership ends at the mean high water line, and that the state holds title to the lands waterward of mean high water for the use and benefit of the public.
In Connecticut, a line of state Supreme Court cases dating back to the earliest days of the republic confirms that in virtually every case private property ends at mean high water (the shore elevation, which is the average of all high tides) and that the state holds title as trustee to the lands waterward of mean high water, subject to the private rights of littoral access, that is, access to navigable waters. According to the Connecticut courts, public rights to the shore include the following (case hyperlinks courtesy of Harvard Caselaw Access Project):
The public trust area includes submerged lands and waters waterward of mean high water in tidal, coastal, or navigable waters of the state of Connecticut. On the ground, the mean high water boundary of the public trust area can often be determined by a prominent wrack line, debris line, or water mark. In general, if an area is regularly wet by the tides, you are probably safe to assume that it is in the public trust. The public trust area is also sometimes referred to as tidelands and is defined as ”public beach“ by the Connecticut Coastal Management Act, C.G.S. 22a-93(6). While the public trust area extends up navigable rivers, it does not extend inland to areas landward of the mean high water line.
In almost every case, private property ends, and public trust property begins, at the mean high water line (often referred to as "high water mark" in court decisions). Mean high water is the average of high tides over a defined period, and its elevation can be obtained from standard references, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Tidal Flood Profile charts.
Simons v. French, 25 Conn. 346 (1856), the public owns up to "high water mark,"
Mather v. Chapman, 40 Conn. 382 (1873), title of riparian proprietor terminates at ordinary high water mark,
Michalczo v. Woodmont, 175 Conn. 535 (1978), "High water mark" = "mean high water mark" = "ordinary high water mark." Private ownership of submerged lands is possible, only when basins are dredged from upland, or from inland, non-navigable waters.
Leydon v. Greenwich, 257 Conn. 318 (2001) - Connecticut Supreme Court overturned the Greenwich ordinance that banned non-residents from entering the park and its beach. The court found that the beach constituted a public forum and non-residents’ access to it was protected under the First Amendment, which guarantees a citizen’s rights to free speech and association; and informed the towns on the Connecticut shoreline that they could not prohibit access to the beachfront.