County of Manatee v. Votey

MANN, Chief Judge.

Does Palm Avenue go to the Manatee River? Yes. The trial judge’s decision to the contrary rests on a misapprehension of the law as it relates to riparian rights.

Since 1897 various plats have shown streets in the former Town of Ellenton extending southward to the waters of the Manatee River. Lying between these streets were undesignated parcels, ostensibly of land, but actually of mangrove and worse. In fact, at the foot of Palm Avenue there was, until a dozen years ago, Rock Creek, into which citizens launched boats and, after a short passage around mangrove swamps, reached…