Is Using the Public Trust Doctrine to Protect Public Parkland from Visual Pollution Justifiable Doctrinal Creep

This Article asks whether the public trust doctrine should be applied to stop the construction of a multistory commercial building that will tower over the tree line of Palisades Interstate Park. The building, which received a variance from a local New Jersey zoning commission, will ruin views of the Park, particularly from scenic overlooks across the Hudson River in New York, like the Metropolitan Museum’s Cloisters and the George Washington Bridge. To make this argument, the author draws on the work of renowned public trust scholars, Professors Joseph Sax and Carol Rose, among others. Based on the doctrine’s adaptability to modern conditions, she finds a sufficient bridge from traditional uses of the doctrine to justify concluding that the proposed building’s interference with scenic views of the Park is an alienation of a trust resource in breach of the doctrine.