Back when I was a kid, there was a pay to enter beach at a nearby lake. It had a fence on both ends running out into the water. My clever brother didn't want to pay a quarter to get in, so he swam around the fence and into the part of the lake where the beach was. The owners caught him and said he had to pay. He said you own the beach, not the lake. So, as long as he didn't use their pier or raft he was allowed.
Sure, but why not also prove, along the way, that any victory Khosla achieves will be worthless anyway? If the guy wants to play hardball on property law, just win. Proving things in the real world matters, too, not just in court.
IIRC, his issue is with the easement, not access to the beach itself. Forcing the public to take a boat to reach the public land is probably sufficiently onerous that Khosla would see it as a victory.
Perhaps I’m a little radical on this, but I think all beaches should be open to the public, and property owners may only block access up to so many feet from the high tide mark. Or say 100 feet from the main structure, etc. restricting access all the way to the water just seems… Overkill.
I agree. I am thankful that in Oregon the governor in 1911 declared all the beaches to be a highway, therefore not available for private ownership. In 1967 it was formalized by legislation recognizing low tide plus 16 vertical feet as publicly owned.
If my understanding is correct, the legislation also requires allowing public access to the beach across privately held land, and in return beach property is exempt from property tax. Or something along those lines.
I'm honestly curious. This seems like a way to create lots of legal corner cases. Can I drive a car on any beach in Oregon? Is it (technically) illegal to bike/walk on the beaches? My guess is that legislation has smoothed out the obvious questions. But to the broader point, do there exist strange legal corner cases because of this?
I’m not sure about state law in Oregon, but the term highway existed before the existence of cars, so calling something a highway doesn’t automatically mean you can drive on it. Similarly, while Americans have a consitutional right to use waterways for transportation, local restrictions can limit the type of boat allowed on a particular stream or lake to prevent the use of motorboats where it would harm wildlife for instance.
There are frequent legal battles when someone buys a large chunk of land that has a stream going through it, only to discover that they can’t legally prevent recreational users from wading, floating, or fishing down it, as long as they don’t go past the high-water mark. Sometimes it’s the only practical way to access otherwise inaccessible public land.
I'm not aware of any strange corner cases, but there are definitely some beaches that are legal to drive on. They are clearly marked, and the rest is off-limits to motorized vehicles.
Ever been out on lake Oswego? A friend owns lakefront property there and I hear there is some controversy on accessing the water. Do you know what's up with it?
I drive through the area all the time but have not been out on the lake. It's ostensibly privately owned and the city doesn't allow non-residents to access it. The controversy is that the state has changed stance on the lake and has decided a few years back that it's navigable and therefore public. It's been litigated for the last few years and as of a few months ago it's up to the Oregon supreme court to make a final judgement. So far the city is winning at most levels. On the merits I'd guess that the state should win since the lake is not man made, it's fed by a public river. But in reality the people who live around the lake are wealthy and I think there's good odds they will prevail.
In any case there's not any controversy on access through private property -- the city has a lakefront park and public access could be granted that way. The residents don't want swimmers (and presumably boaters) who are not paying shareholders of the lake corporation.
I hope to visit Oregon again next summer, last time I went to Astoria and Canon Beach and hiked around trails everywhere when it didn't rain too much. I hope the PNW never changes :)
Maybe not all open to the public - I can understand the notion of a private beach where a 5 star hotel provides premium services for it's paying clientele and wants to exclude the free-riders.
But for that right, the general public should be compensated with a hefty annual rent. The concession would be awarded for a limited time to the highest bidder just like for any other eminently public resource, for example the airwaves. The frequency of my mobile phone is private in the sense that no one else can use for the time I'm using it (it's illegal to even tune a receiver at those frequencies), but it's not my private property or the network's, we lease it from the public.
I can see the logic of your example, but I'm with the radical person - I don't think the rich should be allowed to create "no peasants allowed zones." For many, many reasons, but chief among which is that maybe if the hyper rich have to share some of the public experiences we all have, they'll be more inclined to contribute to the improvement of those resources.
I think your difficulty will be in coming up with a way that allows for any private parks, then. And, by extension, a private yard.
You can almost get away with just defining this as something only single families can do, but then you run afoul of some genuine community ownership things. Want to band together into a mutual HOA so that you and your neighbors can afford to maintain a private pool? Why/why not?
Edit: I suspect I agree with the radical on this. :)
I also sense the slippery slope present, but my understanding is that many countries have beach-specific laws without sliding into "no private property," so the evidence is such that the slippery slope does not exist.
As for parks, the USA has sorted that already with the national and state park system. Sometimes those get huge land donations from private citizens as well.
Buuuut personally, I am of the "abolish private property" mindset anyway, I think that's way out of scope for here though. It's for the same reasons I've listed previously.
Isn't this exactly what private property is? You don't have to be particularly wealthy to own land, and keeping the peasants off of it does not seem controversial.
Is the area near the ocean special? As well as some kinds of wilderness? Well, maybe. I'm from a land-locked place which was almost 100% owned and occupied for hundreds of miles so limits on private ownership anywhere are a bit of a foreign cultural concept.
I have no problem at all with a state restricting ownership near an ocean and enforcing it, I just don't think it's a self-evident inalienable right.
>You don't have to be particularly wealthy to own land,
I disagree with this point, it is untrue for a great deal of Americans and especially those without families to band together to get property.
To that point, that is precisely why I am opposed to private property at all, but I recognize that's an unpopular idea. My main objective is, why are there peasants at all? I don't believe its a requirement at this technology level.
>Is the area near the ocean special?
It's special enough for California, Oregon, and many countries, to have laws that specifically make all beaches public property. I feel similarly about any stretch of wilderness, and so too does the United States, enough to cordon off thousands of acres for national parks. They probably need borders because it's easier to draw a line around what a beach is than "stretch of wilderness."
> maybe if the hyper rich have to share some of the public experiences we all have, they'll be more inclined to contribute to the improvement of those resources.
I agree, but couldn't it be argued it could go the opposite way too? If you're forced to be exposed to something, even if you're ambivalent towards it initially, often times that can breed contempt.
Haha, well, I'm pretty sure aristocrat contempt for the poor is ancient and prevalent enough under all previous private property systems to risk trying something new.
I think it’s reasonable for the state to say that even this level of corporate private access is not desired. Why should it be for such a limited public good?
It does, because the property value is high right, but in California that rate could be "locked in" by the same owner decades ago (property tax doesn't change here until sold).
I'm guessing the op meant a secondary, even greater and separate tax.
> It does, because the property value is high right, but in California that rate could be "locked in" by the same owner decades ago (property tax doesn't change here until sold).
Property taxes can change annually, though there is a 1% maximum rate limit, and so can assessed values, though there is an upper bound to assessed value based on a 2% per year increase over the baseline value set by a qualifying sale or improvement.
Yeah, he sure went about it the wrong way. I would've cleared out all the old buildings/parking lot, built my house and stuck private property signs just around it, that way I'm not blocking access to the beach.
The hassle of finding somewhere to park would get rid of most visitors, then you can just start calling the cops on suspicious cars parked near your house :)
The anti-California line on Twitter is that somehow this is about property rights, that a road being on this guy's property means he somehow is responsible for its upkeep, so he should be allowed to do with it what he wants.
Except... He's not responsible. I just find it interesting that hundreds of suspicious Twitter accounts are taking this opportunity to try to trend hashtags like "#socialismkills"
Under California Coastal Commission rules the property owner must continue to maintain beach access. You also cannot deny beach access which Barbara Streisand among others learned in Malibu years ago. I wish Michigan had been so farsighted.
As a resident of Hawaii, this makes perfect sense; this is part of state law [1] and includes public access, along with protections such as:
> In June 2010 Governor Lingle signed into law House Bill 1808, a bill that prevents private property owners from blocking shoreline access by planting or cultivating vegetation.
It's important to note that Khosla can now apply for a permit for what he wants, presumably be denied, and then the legal battle can happen all over again on slightly different terms.
Despite what he has said, my hypothesis is that he purchased it as an investment. He figured that he could buy it, do enough legal wrangling to restrict beach access, and create a much more valuable private beach for rich people.
Exclusivity increases value; had he created exclusivity attached to the propertt that did not exist when he bought the property, it would have greatly enhanced its resale value, increasing his return on investment.
IMO, the most plausible explanation for the whole affair was that this was the whole point of his buying the property, applying what he saw as a legal hack that would allow him to convert the property into a much more valuable one and resell it.
This is mostly true. One can wander - botaing, fishing, camping, etc. - between the banks of any waterway of any size in Texas and they will be considered to be remaining on public property unless the stream, creek, river, etc. has its entire length from headwaters to terminus with larger stream on property belonging to one owner.
In other words, if the stream you're following begins and ends on property belonging to one owner and no part of that stream is owned or shared with a second party then that stream is entirely private property and access would require permission.
Therefore, short feeder streams in the watersheds may be private property but the majority of waters in Texas are public property between the banks.
People still need to respect the land owner's rights to ask them to tone down parties, control size of any fires, etc. so that their activities don't adversely impact the landowner's property. They also need to remain between the banks unless they have permission to wander around the floodplain, woods, or pastures.
I'm not sure editing is possible or allowed so I add this to clarify what I stated above about access to streams in Texas.
I sure regret missing that spelling error in the first line where it should've read "boating". Oh well.
Navigable waterways are all public waters to their sources. The waterways that could be entirely private that I referred to above (short feeder streams), are intermittent streams that flow downstream into a navigable waterway. Most of these have no stream flow unless there has been rain in the area.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has a great user-friendly section that outlines public and private uses of waterways in Texas.[0]
can't get a prescriptive easement in California unless the access is "hostile to the true owner." And posting a sign wipes out that hostility, per Civ. Code section 1008:
No use by any person or persons, no matter how long continued, of any land, shall ever ripen into an easement by prescription, if the owner of such property posts at each entrance to the property or at intervals of not more than 200 feet along the boundary a sign reading substantially as follows: “Right to pass by permission, and subject to control, of owner: Section 1008, Civil Code.”
AFAICT they actually aren't. Go down to the dogpatch in SF, end of 24th street. Walk through the park to the water, turn right, come to sign saying No Trespassing. Call city, get told all waterways are not public. (or at least in 2013)
You're nitpicking. I say end of the road, while you say he must do one thing first before he can fight further. He has no remaining arguments that he can litigate further.
Yes, he has to do a very minor thing (file a simple form) and then, unless the State gives him everything he wants (which is very very unlikely) he can litigate further.
I wonder if billionaires think that they, in the case of Kholsa, will live another 2-3 decades and will leave this planet for good. Why fight over petty things? I understand that he bought a property, but man why piss off people and go into revenge mode if you could just let go of your high privilege and allow public access? Or buy a property somewhere else. They won’t have the time to spend their earnings before they die.
because he doesn't want to let go of his high privilege. it's not a matter of whether he will have time to spend earning before dying or enjoy something, it's about how dare some peasants even consider that they can impose any restrictions on elite demigods.
I think my point was about perspective. When you’re so high up, you’d think they get some perspective of which fights to pick and which ones aren’t worth their time.
well, that's exactly the thing - if you have to consider general public (choose what will work and what's not worth it) - you're not above it. This is a case of power and having it your way, not looking for reasonable outcomes
I think to become a billionaire in the first place you need a very competitive personality that likes to fight. Without that you will most likely never reach that point.
There was an article I read recently about this fight where Khosla said he's now continuing the legal battle simply on principle. He doesn't actually care (that much) about public access any more.
The "principle" he's fighting for had already been fully vetted by the justice system. He didn't have a leg to stand on, and any competent lawyer would have told him so. His position is literally "your laws don't apply to me."
A mixed record? He has literally lost every single argument he's made, most of which had already been thoroughly litigated in prior. The very few novel arguments he's made were just legal fanfic like "well I have rights because of Mexican law before California became part of the US."
I think the principle that he is looking at is like this, someone please correct me if something is factually incorrect:
He didn't buy the beach, you can't own beach in CA afterall, but the beach truly is inaccessible by any means other than through the private property which he does own. The previous owners of the property allowed people to enter the private property on their way to the public property, and had done so for so long that people have never had to think about it, but the new owner doesn't feel he is obligated to do that, so the loss shocked a lot of people who have been using the private access road. Their supporters feel that because the previous owners allowed it, that the future owner should be obligated in some way to allow it as well. Khosla disagrees.
It's more than that. The previous owners didn't allow unfettered access to the beach. Sometimes the gate was closed. And when it was open they ran a for-pay parking lot.
And Khosla's dispute isn't just about access. He also wants to stop running the for-pay parking lot and restrict access to the sandy beach above the high tide line (which marks the border of his property with public land). His argument seems quite strong on these latter two points imho.
That's a silly dispute. Any change in access and any change to a coastal property has to be approved by the Coastal Commission under California Law. And under California Law, the Coastal Commission is required to force the land-owner to provide beach access in order to gain permission for a change.
While at first glance that may seem unlawful, it has been thoroughly tested in the Courts. This is not an unusual occurrence; everywhere along the California coast you will find land and businesses who provide coastal access as a routine matter.
I assume Khosla has competent legal counsel who would have told him all this before he bought the property.
That's interesting, and we'll see what CA gov does and how far the CA politicians think they can go with this. If they mandate simply that Khosla must ALLOW access, how much can/will he charge for that access, lets say something stupidly large like $200? Would he be within his rights to do so?
And since it is his property, he should be able to close the parking lots, bathrooms, and general store too, especially if he were to be liable for maintenence, upkeep, accident liability, etc?
Not surprised. This guy invested in a company I founded. I had a friend call me and basically say “this dude is horrible, don’t let him invest”. I could write a book about how that investment ended up working out for me personally.
Man, I know that conversations on HN are supposed to be constructive, but can I just say: EFF this guy. I've been keeping tabs on this story. This dude just ignores the rulings and locks his gates anyway. He can afford the fines and does not care. Total tale of two cities stuff. Being very wealthy does not exclude you from the rules of the society you choose to live in. People that behave this way are a cancer and its a shame that there aren't more robust means to hold them to account.
> a) fines should be a percentage of your net worth
Not an easy process to determine net worth of anyone let alone someone like Vinod. Most likely he does not even know his net worth.
For one, things that you own can vary greatly in value. Now multiply that by hundreds or even thousands of things that are owned by a wealthy person (I don't mean the furniture in the house either).
And it simply does and should not work that way. Because what that means is that someone who is poor and has nothing does not get dinged much because they are poor and have nothing (hence they have 'nothing to lose'). Sure you could adjust the penalties but just the same simply not the way it works.
Even Elon Musk, so big deal $20m fine for someone worth billions (non liquid of course). So what is the correct 'fine'? And what if he was in bankruptcy? Then what is the correct fine?
Simply adopt the Finnish model - everyone's tax return is public, and fines are based on income in your last return. I think Sweden operates similarly.
Ridiculously flawed system in itself, as income can easily be faked. In this case, he's a well paid executive that receives most of his income as income.
However, the genuine wealthy will receive most of their income as capital gains and dividends, and will hold most assets through companies.
Income wise, they are often paupers in comparison to their (true) net worth.
An entrepreneur might make a few million one year selling a company, then almost nothing for a few years after if they take a break. Maybe average the last ten years of income to get a better picture?
Either way, it's not perfect. Hundred dollar speeding tickets are brutal for low income families.
There are usually consequences like imprisonment, or additional higher fines, for lying to the tax authorities. So faking your income on a tax return may be considered high risk. It's perfectly possible to consider dividends income as the UK mostly does, and maybe include capital gains as well to arrive at an overall figure for the year after allowances and indexation.
No system is perfect, but seems far less flawed than prescribed fines that sees a millionaire barely notice a £100 parking fine, but someone on minimum wage almost getting wiped out by the same. To me it;s crazy not to reference income, ability to pay or worth when assessing penalty.
> everyone's tax return is public, and fines are based on income in your last return
Not unusual for business people or anyone to have varied income from year to year but also that does not relate to actual assets or (the original point 'net worth' which is ironically a better measure of what you can pay (assumes liquid of course..)) Also what about someone with an inheritance or trust money?
Once again with the speeding fine it seems oppressive for the same 'crime' to charge someone $100k because they have income or assets and have that money to pay.
Also from what I read the Finnish system is legacy and the way it has always been. There is a big difference in that as people grew up with it vs. in the US where it would be something newly done. Forget even the revolt that would happen. It would also (once again here, because not legacy) lead to inflation as people would all the sudden quite possibly think they are underpaid next to someone else.
Now in the US many pay checks are public but people aren't typically keyed into checking the data source because it's a bit obscure and not a regular stop (key point by the way 'out of sight'). So for example if you work in NYC and you find out a trash man makes $90k per year and you make $60k you are going to feel shortchanged possibly. Once again that info is public (and the amount with overtime can be that btw) but not usually something people are accustomed to thinking about.
Not unusual for business people or anyone to have varied income from year to year but also that does not relate to actual assets or (the original point 'net worth' which is ironically a better measure of what you can pay (assumes liquid of course..)) Also what about someone with an inheritance or trust money?
The tax people already have methods for dealing with all those scenarios for tax purposes, so it's essentially a solved problem.
Once again with the speeding fine it seems oppressive for the same 'crime' to charge someone $100k because they have income or assets and have that money to pay.
At least the way it works in Sweden, many fines are defined essentially in days wages and not in money. So the judge doesn't sentence you to pay $100k, they sentence you to pay 45 days wages[0] and the judge neither knows nor cares what that works out to be in actual money. So as such the fines are exactly the same for everybody.
[0] The actual formula is slightly more complicated that literally your daily wage.
> the way it works in Sweden, many fines are defined essentially in days wages and not in money. So the judge doesn't sentence you to pay $100k, they sentence you to pay 45 days wages
So explain how that makes sense because it doesn't take into account the savings of the individual?
If I have a million in savings and I am retired or how do you determine 'wages' with a self employed person?
I am not saying there aren't ways to answer or address this. But it is not simple and not fair the way stated other than a revenue scheme for the government. If the idea is to create a disincentive that has not been done using daily wages.
(Some people live hand to mouth as well so they are particularly impacted)
> Once again with the speeding fine it seems oppressive for the same 'crime' to charge someone $100k because they have income or assets and have that money to pay.
Of course it is, and that's by design. The fine is supposed to be punitive, to act as a deterrent. Punishing someone is oppressing them like by definition.
The flat fee system, conversely, is just setting a price sticker on violating the law. It's literally saying, "you can do this if you're rich enough".
The proportional fine system has its issues, but between the two, I think it's a no-brainer.
That all presumes there's no way around the fine. If he had no warning, sure all those things matter. For something that is extremely easy to comply with, and that he's intentionally not complying with: too bad? This isn't a one-time whupps. It's no different than a DUI - the first one sort of sucks, but not in a life-changing way. The 3rd one you're into some serious, serious shit. He should be at this point.
> Not an easy process to determine net worth of anyone let alone someone like Vinod. Most likely he does not even know his net worth.
Maybe it's not easy, but he definitely has the ability to figure out how much he's worth, even if it means he has to pay a team of accountants.
I think such a system would be workable if it mandated the offender provide a good-faith calculation of their net worth. They'd also be required to show their work, and be subject to harsh penalties if they were found to have deliberately cheated. This is basically how the tax system already works for income.
This gets complex quickly. What if the property is owned by a company, which in turn is owned by a foreign foundation?
Does he actually own the property? Should he be personally liable for that fine because he lives in the property? Should the fine be assessed on the property value?
Plenty of questions unanswered, that likely require legislation at various levels in government.
I'm not saying it's not a good idea, but this requires more work than some people are assuming. Khosla will be dead before any proper legislation without viable loopholes gets enacted.
You know if you really neglect your property and ignore fines long enough, a humble HOA can foreclose upon your house.
Given that this is clearly a pattern of illegal behavior not remedied by civil lawsuits, the state should use eminent domain and seize his property as necessary create the mandatory access and to prevent further illegal activity blocking access to public lands.
I have a problem with HOA's. They're almost always run by the worst kind of people that you don't want to be around. They're almost always evil to the core and extend their powers beyond reason. I will never buy a house with a HOA.
There are countless stories on how they do more harm than good. I have so much disdain for them, I cannot express. Fuck HOAs.
... this submission is about a civil lawsuit that has been appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. What you described has already happened, and he has lost and appealed up to the highest level possible under US law.
Doesn't stop the people in this community from working for his startups and making him richer unfortunately.
I worked for a Khosla company a few years ago and it was pretty depressing to know that if we struck gold, I might get a few million dollars to set my family up, but Vinod would get hundreds of millions to trample on people who werent millionaires. There's no winning in that situation.
Unfortunately for everyone, it seems like his personality is toxic to others and himself. If you read some of the articles about him, he "regrets buying the property" and to me seems pretty conflicted about the whole ordeal. He even "support[s] the Coastal Act"!
Can anyone give a reason for why he claims $30 million for the easement (6 acres, privacy)? I've heard he paid something less than $35 million for the whole property (94 acres). Articles say that the village is part of what he purchased; clearly all those beach homes are worth more than $5 million.
What's a pity is that people this wealthy never reveal their true personalities and can pay for praise while deflecting shame.
Khosla can pay for a PR campaign to say a bunch of nice things about him and how wonderful of a person he actually is while simultaneously having an army of his lawyers go fight his petty battles because how dare a bunch of 'low-income commoners' tell him what he can't do. Just because he owns a VC firm doesn't mean he isn't a douchebag in real life.
> Just because he owns a VC firm doesn't mean he isn't a douchebag in real life.
In fact, that may be a key indicator that he might be a douchebag. Though to me the more likely indicator is his involvement with real estate, which has been a pretty consistent tell in my experience.
To be fair a lot of people invest in real estate, including those with modest income. I wouldn't be surprised to find that a larger percentage of people with defined wealth have some sort of Property or holdings.
Do you have reason to believe the second article wasn't written by him? It doesn't seem like it was written by a professional writer to me.
Neither of those articles cast him in a particularly good light, but I cited them because I think it goes to show that he's suffering from his own decisions which he could free himself from by compromising, but his uncompromising trait is getting in the way.
In other words, I think this would be a very complicated PR play for pretty poor PR.
I sometimes wonder if I would be any better if you gave me a billion dollars. It seems like effectively unlimited wealth does something to people. I wonder if it's a result of what it does to the people around you. Basically you end up surrounded by sycophants and people saying what you want to hear because they want some of your money, so it's not unlike the ego trip cult leaders and gurus get. You no longer get any balanced social feedback.
Same probably applies to power of a more political sort. Are dictators dictators because they're dictators or does placing a human in a dictatorial office turn them into one?
I was wondering the same about these mysterious big money donors that fund reactionary stuff. You could think of them as bond villains from a Handmaid's Tale or you could just think of them as the juiciest targets in the Fox viewers demographic. Why try to scare money out of thousands of sheltered old people when you can go for the big score and terrufy one super rich sheltered old person.
Bingo. Money does not magically render a person impervious to the same insecurities, emotional reactivity, and other failings as ordinary people. It doesn't magically make someone more rational, more secure, less depressed, less fearful, or anything else. Rich people are just big bipedal monkeys with large integers in certain columns of a SQL table.
I think the first level of FU money is to say "fuck my boss". But as multibillionaire you can say "fuck everybody". That requires significantly more money.
It seems fair to say that there are two stratums to the phrase then. One for the working class, where they can take full ownership of their working lives and one for the super rich where they can ignore or abuse the legal and political system to their own gain.
This article says that he bought a private business that operated private road, private parking and convenience store for profit. Then he closed the business. Surely state shouldn't be able to compel a person to run business they don't want to run? Even if road is opened, where are they going to park? Who is going to pay for maintaining the road? For maintaining the restrooms?
He bought a business in the state of California which has the California Coastal Act which regulates "activities broadly defined by the Coastal Act to include (among others) construction of buildings, divisions of land, and activities that change the intensity of use of land or public access to coastal waters".
And closing the private road and parking lot definitely do this.
* He bought the business with full knowledge of what his obligations were under Californian law.
* There is a huge difference between compelling an individual to run a business, and compelling him to not restrict access to the public.
* This lawsuit was not because he stopped maintaining the road, or the bathrooms, but because he closed a road that allowed people access to the beach.
* Government compels people to do all sorts of things, and not closing off public access to a beach after you paid $32 million for a private beach house seems like one of the least onerous.
He doesn’t have to run a business. He can let people park for free, or he can ban all parking and only open the road for drop-offs and walk-ins, and tow any cars that park there. What he can not do, is block the right-of-way providing access to the coastline.
No, but the individual should not be able to block access because he doesn't want to run the business either. In California, the public has full access rights to the beaches. The individual has no right to deny the public access under State law.
Here's a simple test for you to apply: what if Verizon decided it wants out of the 911 'business'? Certain resources (like spectrum, or the beach) belong to the people, in exchange of using those public resources, individuals often make some concessions on how they run their business.
Perhaps that's not a problem per se. If the fines are equal to or greater than the Pigouvian tax you would put on this naughty behavior, then moving from a fine to a hard ban (however that is done) is a net negative move.
You don;t get it. Access to coast is guaranteed to be public in most countries I have visited - it simply is not for sale. This is about super-rich people demanding special treatment, saying - EVERYTHING is for sale, it is just a question of price.
He should be in jail for repeatedly violating the law.
It's happening throughout the West with access to rivers and lakes that billionaires have "purchased." It is definitely a cancer since it weakens the idea that some real estate is public domain. (And I'm an unironic capitalist saying this.)
If someone could find evidence to support this, I think this would be even more damaging for his persona. All this fight "for principle" that comes down to $X million.
These easements aren’t usually documented, but it would be blindingly obvious to anyone who bought the property, especially anyone with an attorney worthy of representing a billionaire.
He absolutely knew, and figured he could bully, buy, litigate and delay his way out of it. I’m betting the whole strategy was written up before the sale was complete.
What would happen if everyone who wanted to recreate on this beach simply ignored his signs, took down the gate, and treated the road like the public right of way it should be?
The police already declined to press charges on one group of surfers who "trespassed" right?
Ultimately, he doesn't have the power to physically prevent people from going to the beach, and if enough people ignored his buffoonery the state would probably not consider it a useful expenditure of policing resources to enforce it.
The problem here seem to be inadequate laws around public access. Since this kind of publicity makes one look petty and small minded one can only assume like a lot of SV billionaires he is a libertarian with 'religious' views on property.
Most other countries have well established laws regarding public access, some things are not for sale. Without the laws or a 'public oriented' justice system a wealthy person can keep on litigating for decades. In the interim the local community do not have access or informal sporadic access and will not have the time or resources to persevere for decades.
Because this is connected to property rights few in the political or justice system will touch an issue that would ideally be fixed in days in a proper democracy. The community now chastened may have a new perspective on absolute property rights come elections but they will find few mainstream candidates support their position. In many ways like the justice system, democracy too will fail them.
Good. There is zero reason why that person should be able to close off access to the beach. It is crazy that, because of his wealth, he's able to just eat the fine that comes from doing so.
I recall hearing that this is the same phenomena that resulted in finally ending the 'Blue Laws' requiring all stores to be closed on Sunday.
IIR the story, the Blue Law fine in NYC for opening on Sunday was $500/day. Woolworths just decided to open anyway and pay it, since they's make more than that. Due to competitive pressure, everyone soon decided to open, and just fight it. The laws soon officially ended.
This isn't about the beach itself, it's about whether he's obligated to keep open (and presumably maintain) a private access road that runs through his property. If the state wants to keep the road open, they should negotiate an easement and maintain the road themselves -- it doesn't make much sense that a property owner be obligated to provide a road for the public without some sort of compensation.
He purchased the property knowing that the beach was public property, and that he had to leave an access way to that property. He then barred access anyway. If he didn’t want people crossing his property he could have bought property elsewhere. His intent however was clearly to create a de facto private beach by violating the laws he agreed to when buying the property.
