United States Supreme Court refuses to take on the Martins Beach case – a victory for California's historic law on coastal access

In a significant victory for coastal access rights in California, the US Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Silicon Valley billionaire's call to keep a beach.

The decision ends a total legal battle against a small stretch of sand in San Mateo County, known as Martins Beach. What started as a local dispute over a locked door exploded into a cause famous for California beach lovers. The dispute that has lasted for about ten years has sparked a series of lawsuits that were aimed at determining whether the owner of the building, Vinod Khosla, needed the permission of the company. State to leave the road.

A series of California courts said he was doing it. If Khosla's last appeal had been allowed, his arguments before the country's highest judicial authority could have threatened a historic state law that declared access to the beach a fundamental right guaranteed to all.

"The most conservative and divided Supreme Court of my time has confirmed that even a billionaire who refuses to acknowledge that the law applies to him and keeps the most expensive lawyers that he can find can not not create a private beach, "said Joseph Cotchett, Surfrider Foundation's lawyer director, who sued Khosla. "The beaches are public in California and the immensely rich must comply with the law on the coast, like everyone else."

Dori Yob Kilmer, a lawyer from Khosla, said in a statement that the case was not about access to the public beach, but about private property rights.

"We are disappointed that the US Supreme Court has decided not to hear this important case," she said. "No private business owner should be required to obtain a government permit before deciding who he wishes to invite on his property."

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times earlier this year, Khosla said he believed in the law on the coasts, but that fighting this case up to the Supreme Court was for him a matter of principle .

"My point of view is this: we absolutely need to increase access to the coast when we can, but we also need to protect private property rights," he said. "It's a matter of principle. The reason is all I ask.

The battle for access to Martins Beach dates back to 2008, when Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, purchased the 89-acre property south of Half Moon Bay for $ 32.5 million.

The Deeney family who sold Martins Beach maintained for almost a century a public bathroom, a parking lot and even a general store. Surfers, fishermen and picnickers paid 25 cents to enter. The fees finally rose to $ 10.

Khosla, in legal documents, said that he "was willing to donate his business and that he still allowed members of the public to access the property for the payment of a fee. . But [he] The Deeneys were soon faced with the same problem: the business suffered considerable losses as the cost of keeping the beach, car park and other facilities in safe and functional conditions far outweighed the costs incurred by the company. ;activity.

So he closed the door, hired security guards and posted "do not go in" signs.

A number of public interest groups have since sued Khosla. In turn, he sued the California Coastal Commission, the State Lands Commission and San Mateo County for what he considered to be an infringement of his property rights.

A judge of the San Mateo County Superior Court, however, dismissed the case, saying that he had to go through the commission's authorization process or the enforcement proceedings before he could take legal action.

The last case began when Surfrider sued Khosla on the grounds that he had not applied for the development permit required to change public access to the coast. A local court sided with Surfrider and a state appeal court upheld this ruling, ordering Khosla to unlock the door during the conflict. Khosla again appealed to the state Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case.

Since then, the door is open during the day. An attendant operates a small parking lot, guiding visitors along a winding ramp to an isolated stretch of sand and crescent-shaped cliffs.

Unwilling to back down, Khosla appealed earlier this year to the US Supreme Court. His argument has not only challenged the constitutionality of the Coastal Law – if it were taken up by the country's highest court, it would call into question long-established land use procedures and the power of any state to regulate Development.

In his petition, Khosla's team of lawyers described California's coastal policies as "Orwellian" and explained that private property should not be used for public purposes without fair compensation: "

His chances were slim – thousands of appeals filed each year, only about 100 are reviewed. But he hired a senior Supreme Court lawyer, able to overcome the obstacles and present his case to the highest judges in the country. And with the conservative interpretations of property rights gaining importance and the appointment of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch by President Trump – and perhaps another conservative nomination en route – legal experts have said that having a lawyer and well-designed arguments could have been enough to grab the attention of the judges.

Khosla's submissions – filed by a number of real estate groups, including the Pacific Legal Foundation and the Institute for Justice – set out the main conservative arguments that would have been considered by the highest court.

The California Assn. realtors and realtors' national associations, urging the Supreme Court to take up the case, have expressed concern that "this violation of the acceptance clause will encourage the California Coastal Commission to impose similar unconstitutional controls on the large number of properties along the California coast ". encourage similar restrictions imposed on landowners by other government agencies across the United States ".

California Business Properties Assn. added that if Khosla lost, the decision would have "significant consequences for commercial real estate".

"The right to exclude is a fundamental premise that underlies private property and affects the ability of each owner to control its properties in a fundamental way," the group wrote in an amicus brief.

While the conflict between property rights and access to the beach is highly politicized, the legal issue is relatively narrow – and it clearly has not attracted the attention of judges, Richard said. Frank, director of UC Davis California Environmental Law and Policy Center. . "It only takes four votes, so if the conservative wing of the Supreme Court had voted en bloc, his four votes would have been enough."

The decision, Frank said, will not put an end to the struggles for access to the beach in the state.

"It's a zero-sum game: the more you protect private property rights, the more restricted or contested public access is," he said. "And the opposite is also true."

In Monday's statement, Khosla's legal team said it would abide by state courts and begin the licensing process now.

"No business owner should be forced to obtain government permission to close a private business, change the prices of those that existed in 1972 (as requested by the state)," says the communicated. "However, we will comply with the decision of the California Court of Appeals and apply for the required license. In case of refusal, we will repeat this process. "

The Coastal Commission, which is not an official party in the Surfrider lawsuit, said it was thinking about what to do and hoped Khosla would "work with us to ensure that historic public access to Martin's Beach remains available." for present and future generations ".

The state has also created an account that can be used to collect donations in order to evaluate, acquire and maintain public access to the beach. The State Land Commission suggested a public highway operated as a park – with daily hours of operation from morning till night, garbage cans and portable toilets. How exactly will the commission acquire this land?

Surfrider, who on Monday celebrated coastal officials, state legislators and local surfers in Martins Beach, said he would continue to fight for beach access.

"The Surfrider Foundation strives to preserve the rights of the many, not to make the assets of a few," said Angela Howe, the organization's legal director. "We protect the right of everyone to visit, appreciate and protect the beach, regardless of race, socio-economic class or place of residence."

Eric Buescher, one of Surfrider's lawyers, said Monday's Supreme Court action said much about California's law on coastal access.

"This lawsuit began in the form of a modest assertion that the Coastal Act's licensing requirements apply to everyone. This has turned into a fight for the future of public access on more than 1,100 kilometers of coastline in this state, "he said. "We are grateful for the promise of the California Coastal Act that the beach can not be bought, but that it belongs to the public, survived the whims of a billionaire, which could drain status protections."