Property ownership comes with easements and other legal restrictions all the time. I have to give the power company access to the power pole on my property, and I knew that when I bought it.
Public easements to public beaches are quite normal.
> Public easements to public beaches are quite normal.
Except this particular beach happens to be a very abnormal one. This issue was resolved years ago, and Khosla won: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/04/27/martins-beach-appeal.... In 2016, the California Court of Appeals held that, because Khosla's property dates from a Mexican land grant, and the state never reserved an easement, there is no public easement on Khosla's property. In 2019, the same court rejected the alternate theory that an easement had been created by the property owner "dedicating the easement to public use." See: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-26/billionai...
As you recognize, the "public easement" theory is what applies here. But California lost on that theory. There is no easement here. California has been attempting to keep the beach open using unrelated regulatory powers. (Basically, there is no public easement, but through our powers to regulate what can be built on the beach, we can keep you from building anything to keep the public out.)
If it wasn't for the wildly misleading reporting, everyone would recognize this as overreach and abuse by the State.
What you're describing is not "law." Law is defining rights based on rules everyone agrees to ahead of time. Changing the rules after the fact based on what "people want" isn't law, it's tyranny. California litigated this issue--what rights it has in land subject to the treaty with Mexico--in front of the United States Supreme Court in 1984, and lost. That is "the law."
They're not immutable, but they're subject to legal constraints, and those constraints may have nothing to do with "what the public wants." Two rules apply here:
1) Supremacy Clause. Federal treaties take priority over state law. When California was ceded to the United States, the Mexican government demanded that existing property rights would be preserved. Congress created a Commission to resolve all existing Mexican property claims in 1851, and the results became binding. In the 1984 case, the Supreme Court held that this federal commitment took precedence over California's public access law. The treaty could theoretically be renegotiated, but California cannot do so unilaterally.
2) Law is subject to individual rights ("life, liberty, and property"). California cannot just pass a law giving everyone beach access. It is constrained by pre-existing rules and property rights. In the case of beach access, pre-existing rules usually gives you an avenue. Under English law, the Crown owned the beaches (up to the high tide line). When the United States became independent, the states inherited that property right. (And johnny-come-lately states like California were created under Congress's power under the Constitution to create new states, and since 1796 Congress has done so providing that the new state enters the union on "equal footing" with existing states. That has been interpreted to mean that such states similarly own their beaches to the high tide line.)
But in this specific case the rules say that California doesn't have a property right to allow people to cross Khosla's property. It cannot just make a law giving people that right, because that would infringe Khosla's property right. The only thing it can do is buy Khosla's property if it wants to dedicate it to public use.
"What the public wants" is relevant insofar as it allows the legislature to craft law within the space of what is otherwise legal. (Here, for example, if the "public wants" beach access, California may pass a law raising money to buy an easement over Khosla's land.) But public whim, or even public whim translated into state law, cannot overcome property rights and federal treaty obligations.
So I understand the lawyerly arguments here. You've done a great job explaining them.
Here in California we do hold what citizens want to a great degree of value. We've worked for a more direct democracy with citizen initiated constitutional amendments and more recently, citizen initiated redistricting.
With this in mind, you have to concede that at some point you're going to have a harder time arguing lawyerly points to an ever-growing statewide coalition.
That's very reasonable. Sounds like it's time to pass a law in CA that requires property owners to have an easement offered to the public for beach access.
Have such an easement recorded for all real estate parcels touching the coast. Done.
I know they have that 1976 law mentioned in the article, but clearly that was not strongly written so as to force this.
Oh. Well in that case I'm sure this will be quickly resolved in the public's favor.
I hope it's not one of those 'feel-good' laws written like "All Californians should be able to access the beaches" (without specifying actionable frameworks like easements and such).
No this is a very specific law requiring easements exactly as you said. It is not getting resolved quickly because every time Vinod loses (and that's been every time so far) he just baselessly appeals the ruling again and again.
You are exactly backwards in this statement. Vinod keeps winning and then he keeps getting sued again (by a different party or under a different theory).
> The squabble has spurred a spate of lawsuits that now focus on whether Khosla needs state permission to gate off the road — and a string of California courts has said he does.
> In a significant victory for coastal access rights in California, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a Silicon Valley billionaire’s appeal to keep a beach to himself.
The reporting on this topic (especially headlines) has been generally quite poor. You really have to dig in to understand what is going on. See this cousin comment for details on how he has won on most of the merits:
That's only true if you're talking about different arguments for the same issue. Here, there are multiple issues: (1) does Khosla need a permit; and (2) does the public have an easement across his land?
It's worth reading Surfrider Foundation's opposition to Khosla's Supreme Court certiorari petition: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/17/17-1198/50086/2018.... Their #1 argument was that the Supreme Court shouldn't take this case now because Khosla hasn't even applied for a permit. (He was just fighting an injunction that keeps him from closing the road until he gets a permit.)
But eventually, the State will have to deny Khosla the permit, and justify doing so. It will be very hard for the State to say "we are going to keep you from building a fence to close this road," while simultaneously acknowledging "the public doesn't actually have a right to use this road." If the State uses its permitting power to effectively give itself an easement that doesn't otherwise exist, that will tee up the takings argument that was only theoretical in the Supreme Court petition. And I like Khosla's odds on prevailing on that argument.
Courts have so far ruled that, for various reasons, the 1976 California Coastal Act doesn't apply at all to this piece of land. They have also ruled that the previous use of the land didn't create any sort of government easement over the property.
That is the precise opposite of what is happening. Vinod bought a property with certain rights attached. Although the previous owners had allowed some access they had also denied access under some circumstances as well. What Vinod is doing is getting the law to resolve who exactly owns what and has what rights and obligations. If someone had the guts to demand that level of clarification in the past then we would not have this mess now.
Public easements to public beaches are quite normal.