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Turning up the pressure on Silicon Valley billionaire Vinod Khosla in the high-profile battle over Martins Beach, the California Attorney General’s office on Monday filed suit against the tech mogul, claiming he has been “improperly and illegally” restricting public access to the popular beach for the past decade.
The lawsuit filed in San Mateo County Superior Court on behalf of the California Coastal Commission and the State Lands Commission is the latest salvo in a decade-long dispute since Khosla purchased 88 acres in 2008 surrounding the beach near Half Moon Bay. The two agencies are seeking a court order to require Khosla, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, to remove any no trespassing signs and to take down a gate that he has used to block the only road leading to the waterfront.
The agencies contend that generations of families who used the beach and the road leading to it before Khosla’s ownership guaranteed an irrevocable public right of access under long-established legal precedent that he cannot revoke.
“Our goal here is to make sure that any public rights that exist are properly protected,” said Seth Blackmon, chief counsel for the State Lands Commission. “And that folks aren’t blocked off from beaches in California.”
To bolster their case, the Coastal Commission has collected photographs, letters, journal entries and other evidence from 230 families who used the beach dating back to the 1920s for picnicking, fishing, swimming and other recreation.
The fight over the sandy beach on the San Mateo County coast has gained nationwide attention. Khosla has called it a case of private property rights, and political leaders, surfers and environmentalists have said the issue could set a precedent about whether California’s beaches can be closed off by wealthy landowners.
“It’s going to be a big fight. We’re aware of that,” said Lisa Haage, chief of enforcement for the Coastal Commission, a state agency based in San Francisco. “We think it’s worth it. This is a very special place, and the public has a long history of using it. We want to protect that right in perpetuity.”
In November, Khosla won a case involving similar issues against a non-profit group called Friends of Martins Beach. But the state agencies, their legal firepower, and their family history evidence were not part of that showdown.
In that case, the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco ruled that because beach-goers paid parking fees in the past to the property’s previous owner, a public right to the road had not been established.
“The claims asserted in today’s lawsuit have been extensively litigated and repeatedly rejected by the courts in a prior lawsuit,” said Dori Yob Kilmer, an attorney for Khosla, on Monday.
“Since the property was purchased by our client,” she added. “the state, and small activist groups, have endeavored to seize our client’s private property without compensation. While such tactics are commonplace in communist systems, they have never been tolerated in the American system where the U.S. Constitution precludes the government from simply taking private property and giving it to the public.
But the agencies behind Monday’s lawsuit say their evidence upends that argument. The previous owners, the Deeney family, and their business partners, the Watt family, who ran a beach store and restaurant there, didn’t consistently collect parking fees until the 1960s or 1970s, the lawsuit alleges. Even after that, the suit says, people regularly used the road for years without being charged. Further, when it was collected, the fee was to park a vehicle, not to access the beach, so the fees “did not amount to a restriction on public use.”
Under the legal doctrine known as implied dedication, if the public has regularly accessed a route for five years or more, a permanent right of passage is established, the lawsuit says. The state Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in 1970 on the issue involving a Santa Cruz beach.
The outcome of Monday’s lawsuit could have major ramifications for the scenic beach seven miles south of Highway 1, which is flanked on both sides by steep cliffs, making Martins Beach Road the only land access.
A prominent venture capitalist, Khosla, 64, of Portola Valley boasts a net worth estimated at $2.1 billion by Forbes magazine. Two years after he bought the property surrounding Martins Beach, he locked the gates, then hired guards and posted no trespassing signs.
Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up the Martins Beach battle. Then, the justices left in place lower court rulings that found Khosla could not lock the gate across the half-mile-long road without a permit from the Coastal Commission because California’s Coastal Act requires permits if landowners change public access to beaches.
Khosla still has not applied for a permit. Since the Supreme Court decision, however, he has opened the gate most days from roughly 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., and motorists are charged $10 to drive down the road and park at the beach. Some surfers and other visitors park along Highway 1 and walk 15 minutes down the road to the sand to avoid paying the fee.
Monday’s lawsuit could force a final result. If the state wins, it will be virtually impossible for Khosla to obtain a permit from the Coastal Commission to close the gate. The commission would probably rule the parking fee is illegal, and the state could hit him with fines totaling $20 million or more.
If Khosla wins, he could have a stronger argument to close the gate — namely that there was never any legal public access to the beach. The State Lands Commission still could take the road or an easement to the road by eminent domain, however, which it has studied. But that would require securing funding from the state Legislature. Khosla has said he would sell an easement to the state for $30 million, nearly as much as he paid for the whole property. The State Lands Commission has $1 million currently that could be used for eminent domain there.
The road also would be appraised at a much higher price if Khosla wins. Eminent domain would set a precedent, some coastal access advocates fear, that might encourage other wealthy landowners to block beach paths in other parts of California seeking payment from the government.
