The beachfront part of the property isn’t in dispute. What’s in dispute is the part between the high tide line and the ROAD.
Perhaps you should read a little more about the facts of the case before glibly replying.
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There are plenty of open beaches here in Connecticut! Only no parking without a permit within about 10 miles. But walk on down!
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I’ve heard about those…
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Okey doke. I read a bit. Thanks for the encouragement. I think he’s gonna be out of luck. In the Nollan case, the CCC failed because the public easement didn’t exist beforehand, and tying its creation to the building permit of a new structure that didn’t have anything to do with the previously nonexistent easement amounted to taking their land for no reason. A purchase through eminent domain would have been the fair way to go, said the Supreme Court. But in this case, the easement was pre-existing when he bought the land, and Khosla blocked access to it in defiance of the county, the Coastal Commission, and the Superior Court.
Maybe Scalia can help him out too. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
There. Thank you for helping me dispose of my glibness before it embarrasses me in public.
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Martin’s. Beach. Is. Not. Public. Land.
This is some of the most uninformed petty outrage ever. As the court’s decision clearly says,
"It is undisputed that Martins Beach is private property. "
This is a complicated case, in part because the undivided parcel’s title dates back to the original Spanish land grant, which alters the usual “mean-high-tide” equation, which only applies to land entitled under US California state law. (And, no, children, that is not some irrelevant technicality.) But that was not a factor in the current decision.
The property’s previous owners had allowed public access to their private beach in return for payment of a parking fee. Khosla, as the new owner, closed this access.
And this ruling is even trickier than it looks, because it basically turns on the principle that locking a gate and painting over a sign constitutes ‘development’ under California law, because it changes the intensity of public use of the beach, and therefore requires a Coastal Development Permit - which Khosla didn’t apply for.
The Coastal Act requires a Coastal Development Permit for any development that changes the intensity of public use of the beach. And Spanish land-grant titles don’t exempt you from that.
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But the previous owners were known to charge for access ($5.00) so it wasn’t a “public easement”, it was – essentially – a privately owned and operated pay-to-use trail.
Since it’s not a public easement at that point, I’m not sure how they can (from a constitutional standpoint) commit a taking without a compensation.
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It varies by state and its quite a bit more complicated (at least in New York). There really isn’t a technical standard for determining the average high tide mark, and if memory serves the actual language of the law is pretty vague. In practice where I live we tend to go with the high end of the regular high tide lines, which typically means the whole beach. Land deeds/realters/owners here will often set the boundaries of the property much lower than any the actual high tide levels. Even frequently claiming to own upwards of 20 feet into the body of water. Which is total nonsense. Though it doesn’t tend to come up much, when there is the occasional dispute the courts here have a tendency to push it back even further. Stopping people’s property lines at the beginning of any dunes or bluffs before the beach starts (the highest regular high tide line effectively) for the sake of environmental protections. But the powers that be also regard walking round the long way from a public access beach to be sufficient “public access”, which can sometimes be several miles. Not all of NY takes it that seriously though, and there are areas (like certain areas of the Hamptons for example) where its completely insane. There are dudes building walls into the water along their supposed property lines out there.
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In this case the land in question is not the beach (which is a public beach) but the road leading to the beach. By closing the road he blocked access to the beach. There’s a catch-22 here in that the road is private, but as the only road to the public beach, it can’t legally be closed to the public.
If his contention is that he wasn’t trying to cordon off a public beach (making it a de facto private beach), just exercise property rights over his own private road, how would he feel if the state bought that road at fair market value? Or better yet, if people started boating over to that beach and having loud, all-night parties?
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So too on Long Island. But I distinctly remember being shocked vising beaches in Jersey to find there was a $5 plus per head admission to get on the beach. Most of the access seemed to be owned by hotels, though the cheaper access points seemed to be publicly owned. And let me be clear this was not a parking fee. You had to buy a ticket to step onto the beach.
We snuck down an alley between hotels. Back between the dumpsters where noone could see our car parked.
I get the impression they charged $5 for parking, not for access. Which makes sense, if people are going to be parking their cars on your land. But if they’re parking outside and hoofing it down the easement, that’s different. That’s exactly the kind of beach access that the law is meant to protect.
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A major point of property law you seem to be unfamiliar with is Right of Way. I own 20 acres in north east Washington. There are several parcels whose access is via a right of way across my property. I can put up a gate and they are only required to close it when they pass through. I can’t lock them out. You used the word “deed”. Have you ever read a land deed before? They are full of all sorts of interesting things, some from long ago. The deed to my first house says that I can’t keep pigs on the property, that’s from the 1930’s. The house is 2 blocks from Liberty Lake and my deed guarantees me access to the beach via right of ways between certain houses that have existed for decades. The beach is actually “owned” by deed holders who purchased stretches of beach back when it was first developed. But they can’t stop anyone else who lives in that area from using the beach. They just have the extra right to put a dock on their stretch of beach.
Also it looks as if the California Coastal Act established that historic access ways must remain public access. Then there is Fire and Police access that must remain open. Many things in property law hinge on how long something has been done in the past, even if it is not addressed directly in a deed. Pure, 100% property ownership, that somehow separates your property from the entire world around it and gives you supreme dictatorship inside your property lines exists only in the fantasies of radical Libertarians. Sounds like he should have purchased in Dubai not California.
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I grew up in Norwalk and thought the exact same thing when I read this! LOL Plenty of private beaches and some public ones you are free to take the bus to.
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I’ll have to ask my in-laws. They own beach property in Fort Bragg, CA, and they made a point to find out exactly where their property ends (though that line does move if it is indeed tied to the average high tide, since no terrain is less eternal than a beach). They have a stone staircase next to their backyard, maintained by themselves and their immediate neighbors, and there is signage from the main road pointing out that that access point exists. There’s a gate halfway down the staircase, but it is only latched for safety and never locked.
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Ah, but given that the North American landmass is surrounded by ocean waters bar the Mexican connection, technically no portion of the tideline may be described as ‘seaward’, otherwise you must define the entire beach as seaward, making a nonsense of descriptive legalisms.
Hence m’lud, my client acts only in the interests of the preservation of law and order.
To learn more about the history on this property, and why it’s going to be a tricky battle, I recommend this article. It’s from last October, and discusses an earlier lawsuit that was won by Khosla when the judge decided to focus on the history (think Mexican-American War) of the property’s deed and how that might affect the current weight of California and U.S. law in relationship to it.
What would happen if some beach-goers brought their own security force to protect their right to access the beach?
(I know little about US law and I have no clue about Californian law, but I assume there is some law that prohibits use of force to force others to do your will or to prevent them from exercising their rights.
There must also be some exception that allows you to defend your own rights under some circumstances.
And where the opinions differ on what your rights are, things can get interesting…)
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Well, quite. This is gonna be a loooooonng thread…
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If his contention is that he wasn’t trying to cordon off a public beach
(making it a de facto private beach), just exercise property rights over
his own private road, how would he feel if the state bought that road
at fair market value? Or better yet, if people started boating over to
that beach and having loud, all-night parties?
I can’t speak to how HE would feel (and frankly, I don’t give a crap how he’d feel) but I would feel better that the Constitution was being obeyed in those situations.
It seems to me that court rulings are usually made public, whether you are rich or poor, unless you are Uncle Sam and can play the national security card. It’s just that the deeds and misdeeds of the rich and powerful get more interest from the media and the public. Sadly, the ultra-rich live in their own world, physically, mentally, and emotionally, and do not feel the scorn and derision that mere commoners send their way.
I suspect he will probably get a few attaboys from his peers for his effort.
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If this is a Constitutional matter then he can fight all the way to the Supreme Court. The judge in this case is enforcing CA. state law. The precedent this would set if he were to win would mean someone wealthy enough could buy up land all around a piece of public land and by denying access essentially make it private land (and yet not have to pay property taxes on it.) Do his property rights trump the property rights of the public at large? The state has a vested interest in protecting lands we all use, but if you are not a big fan of state’s rights then I guess it’s a moot point.
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