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Silicon Valley Billionaire Fails To Prevent Access To Public Beach (theguardian.com)
Robotron23 writes: Vinod Khosla, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, has lost his appeal to privatize Martins Beach -- a publicly-owned strip of coastline in California. Having previously fenced off the land in a bid to render the area private, Khosla has been ordered to restore access by a California court. Khosla had previously demanded the government pay him $30 million to reopen the gate to the beachfront. The law of California states that all beaches should be open to the public up to the "mean high tide line." "The decision this week, affirming a lower court ruling, stems from a lawsuit filed by the Surfrider Foundation, a not-for-profit group that says the case could have broader implications for beach access across the U.S.," reports The Guardian.
The oldest recognized law in Oregon is that everyone has access to the beach, you can't impede or infringe on that right.
It was inherited from the native inhabitants, and despite it not having been written down before hand, was well recognized and benefits everyone.
Californian developers and the like that come up here and try to take over sections of the beach get a very rude legal awakening.
They've also tried to sue for "loss of value", but they always lose because the property they bought never included the beach in the first place.
Reminds me of the controversy surrounding Zuckerberg building a wall around his estate in Hawaii and pissing off a lot of locals.
And hardcore libertarians when someone dares ask them to share.
Take a look at Vinod's political donations.
He has supported higher taxes for alternative energy and stem cell research. He has donated to both Dem and Rep candidates, mostly moderates (at least by California standards). There is no record of him donating to a Libertarian.
Martin's beach is a noted California landmark, and yes, access had long been open. This prick knew of its importance to the region when he bought it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Venezuela is economically crippled because it is a government by and for thieves, hiding under the rhetoric of Marxism. The vulnerability to petroleum prices is just window dressing.
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This is not California-specific. In common-law countries (the US is one), the one-two punch of land rights ending at a mean tide line, and a public right-of-way to access the sea, are literally *ancient*. As in, the common-law rights go back to the actual Byzantine Empire and have been inherited into legal systems descended from it, of which the US is one.
This is why the guy's trying all sorts of weird arguments in hope of seeing what sticks. IIRC his latest was trying to claim that the land he wants to close off shouldn't have been covered by this because of some random detail of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Most parts of the US which have tidal waters have basically the same rule to guarantee public water access from the land, and unless he can come up with something truly stupendous he's not going to overturn 1500-ish years of how common-law systems work. He's also going to have a hard time arguing for a taking here, since it's not like this is an unknown or new thing. Just as when you purchase land with any other kind of easement or right-of-way, that comes as part of the deal.
Since 1803
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Honestly, I think rich people just throw their money at it to keep it tied up in court for as long as they can. Malibu has the exact same problem - the beach is public, but the houses in front of it block access. The few public access gates are frequently locked (illegally) or vandalized by property owners to prevent the public from accessing the beach.
The basic idea is that you can't own the beach. You can own the land adjacent to it, but the beach (in California, up to the point where it's submerged during high tide) belongs to the public. Rich people have tried to get around this by buying up all the land in front of a beach to make it difficult or annoyingly distant for the public to access it. But the CCC responds by requiring a public accessway be installed if that happens.