Does an ordinance prohibiting storage boats on Lake Minnetonka promote the public welfare? May it abridge preexisting nonconforming uses?

Hawks v. Lake Minnetonka Conservation District, 1999 WL 138731 (Minn. App. 1999)(Unpublished).

Hawks, a property owner on Lake Minnetonka, built a storage boat to house a 1929 wooden speedboat. Thereafter, the Lake Minnetonka Conservation District adopted an ordinance prohibiting storage boats on the lake. Hawks was charged with a misdemeanor violation and brought an action challenging the validity of the ordinance.

The court rejected Hawk's argument that the ordinance has no substantial relationship to the public welfare, finding that it allows for more open waters and maintains the natural beauty of the lake.

Hawks asserted that the storage boat was a preexisting nonconforming use that could be abridged only through the exercise of eminent domain. The Court, noting that riparian ownership extends only to the low-water mark, ruled that the exercise of public rights beyond this boundary did not constitute a taking. Further, it found, Hawks could remove the boat from the lake and use it elsewhere, or convert it to a houseboat, so that he had not been deprived of all reasonable use.

Finally, Hawks claimed that the ordinance was invalid as an ex post facto law. The court disagreed, stating that the appellant was being prosecuted not for his past conduct, but instead for continuing to maintain the boat on the lake after the ordinance was adopted.

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