§ 11-117-11

For the purpose of constructing water purification plants and acquiring or constructing wharves, piers, docks, levees, or in connection with wharves, piers, docks, levees, elevators, warehouses, vaults, or necessary and appropriate tracks or terminal facilities, any municipality may reclaim the submerged land under any public waters within the jurisdiction of or bordering upon the municipality, and thereupon shall be vested with the absolute title, in fee simple, to the land so reclaimed. For any of these purposes the municipality may acquire, by purchase, condemnation or otherwise, the title of private or public owners to land lying beneath those public waters, and also the riparian or other rights of the owners of the shore land abutting on those public waters, or in or over those public waters, or the submerged land under those waters. However, where any park district holds land abutting upon the shores of Lake Michigan adjacent to the submerged land intended to be reclaimed for the purpose of constructing water filtration plants, the approval of a plan by such park district showing the boundaries of the submerged land to be reclaimed and the character of buildings and structures to be erected thereon shall first be obtained prior to the reclamation of such submerged land by any municipality. Nothing contained in this section, however, shall give to any municipality the right to acquire submerged land from any park district where any grant heretofore has been made of this submerged land to the park district and the grant has been accepted by the park district.

Legislative History

(Source: Laws 1961, p. 576.)