ABSTRACT
This chapter explores tensions between property and land use planning law on the Australian coast as climate change disrupts relations between actors and between actors and their sense of place. The chapter argues that climate change is a protagonist for a repositioning of place in law's responses to land use disputes. While broader categories of climate adaptation litigation are gaining momentum around the world, to date a significant proportion of this litigation has occurred due to contestations between property rights and land use planning. In drawing attention to the materiality of property and to the linking of property to its physical and material surrounds, the concept of lawscape offers a useful lens through which contested property claims on the Australian East Coast can be explored. To address changes in the landscape, the common law developed the doctrine of accretion for situations where 'naturally occurring' weather events added land to one's private title.
