Monday, January 26, 2015

This land (and sand) is OUR land

The State Lands Commission may use powers never employed in its 77-year history, seizing private land for public use.

Billionaire venture-capital investor Vinod Khosla, who has been locking a gate at his beach property along California’s Pacific coast. A sign posted on the metal barricade reads “private property, no trespassing.”  Khosla’s campaign to keep the public off the 36 hectares he owns on the crescent-shaped coastline marks the latest salvo in an income-inequality battle in which long-time residents are being priced out by the influx of highly paid tech workers and wealthy executives which has generated resentment among those already worried about the area’s soaring cost of living.

“I live here, and I want to be able to bring my kids here,” said Krishneil Maharaj, a 35-year-old information technology project manager who recalled scattering his grandmother’s ashes at a family ceremony at the beach a decade ago. “I don’t think one man should be able to cut off access to this beautiful spot.” She added “You can’t thwart a billionaire.”

“In California, the public owns the beach; we like that,” Rob Caughlan, 71, a former president of the nonprofit Surfrider Foundation that sued Khosla for blocking access

A patchwork of laws governs access along U.S. coastlines, with the boundary based on a formula referencing the tide line, including the mean high-water and low-water lines, said Ben Sherman, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Under the California Constitution, land that’s seaward of the mean high tide line is considered public land and access is enforced by the state Coastal Commission. Officials last month invited Khosla to begin talks to sell the state a right of way on his $32.5 million property providing public access to and along Martins Beach, a popular surf spot about 53 kilometres south of San Francisco.

 Jennifer Lucchesi, executive officer at the State Lands Commission, sent a letter to Khosla’s representatives on Dec. 31 initiating talks mandated by a law enacted last year that directs the agency to consider using its eminent-domain powers if an agreement isn’t reached by Jan. 1, 2016. The agency has about $6.4 million in a land bank fund to buy the property, she said, adding that she hasn’t yet received a response. If the state decides to use those powers, it could acquire land leading to and along the shoreline, including the sandy beach, through Khosla’s property. The battle waged in the courts and the Legislature also involves the California Coastal Commission, which sent Khosla a letter last month advising him that he will face a penalty of as much as $11,250 daily for blocking public access, said Sarah Christie, the agency’s legislative director.

In earlier fights in Southern California, entertainment mogul David Geffen and Santa Barbara News-Press owner Wendy McCaw tried unsuccessfully to block public access to shorelines near their homes.

In Canada oceanfront land owners own to the high tide mark and the public has free use of the beach between the high and low water marks. They cannot however cross private land without permission to get to the beach as that would be trespassing. In the UK the beach is crown property (except in Shetland.) Socialists demand that all land will be common property, not just a beach



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