Ultimately, it was the home owners along East Lakeshore Drive who were the squatters not the beachcombers, sunbathers and swimmers on Sanders Beach.

In a historic decision that could settle ownership claims on the controversial Lake Coeur d’Alene beach, 1st District Judge James Judd ruled last week that the ordinary high-water mark for the beach was 2 feet higher than home owners and the state of Idaho expected. That means the property owners in the stately homes overlooking the beach have been violating the public’s access rights by posting the beach as “private property” and erecting fences.

The new generation of East Lakeshore Drive homeowners has only itself to blame for the adverse court decision. If the group had continued the long-standing practice of allowing the public to use the beach, it wouldn’t be facing the prospect of additional anguish and of squandering more money on legal fees to appeal Judd’s decision. Coeur d’Alene residents, for their part, would have been happy to continue the myth that the beach was private property.

Instead, due to the enlightened decision by the city of Coeur d’Alene to sue to determine the private boundary line, the homeowners have no legal claim to the waterfront. Nor are they in a position of strength to negotiate a settlement with Mayor Sandi Bloem’s administration that would allow them to peacefully coexist with beach users. However, both sides should note the calm that ensued after Judd declared the beach open to the public until he handed down his ruling. Rather than continue to litigate, property owners should accept the olive leaf extended by Bloem to discuss ways to make the court decision work for them, too.

“I’d love to sit down with the preservationists and the home owners and negotiate a good compromise out of the courts,” Bloem told The Spokesman-Review Tuesday.

A good settlement would mimic the way the city governed the beach this summer, including patrolling it regularly, picking up litter and enforcing curfews. For the first time in recent memory, Sanders Beach was a playground rather than a battleground this summer. Bloem, who grew up on Sanders Beach and who once helped break up a fight between a homeowner and a beachcomber, couldn’t recall any confrontations this year. That’s a far cry from the annual warfare in which homeowners called local police to report “trespassers” and beach users defied property owners for erecting fences and makeshift barriers.

From the 19th century onward, Coeur d’Alene residents have enjoyed recreating on Sanders Beach. The summertime fun was threatened in the 1970s when the first of the seawalls was erected by East Lakeshore Drive owners. Public access continued as the beach shrunk. But uneasiness transformed into anger as properties changed hands and the new breed of owner failed to respect the historic access of the community. Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court ruled against a homeowner who’d erected two chain link fences to protect “his” beach property.

With this latest adverse ruling, the property owners should realize they’re better off letting the city oversee the Sanders Beach headache.