4 ms·

This case is misunderstood in a lot of ways. A couple of things worth noting: - The beach up to the mean high tide line is public land by law. No one, includin

by harryh 7y ago

This case is misunderstood in a lot of ways. A couple of things worth noting: - The beach up to the mean high tide line is public land by law. No one, including Khosla, disputes this. - The sandy beach above the high tide line as well as a convenient parking lot was previously accessible to the public for a small fee. This is what Khosla wants to shut down and what Friends of Martin's Beach & The Surfrider Foundation have sued over. It seems fairly obvious to me (though perhaps not to others) that Khosla is in the right here. The private land is his. He can do what he wants with it. - Kind of in the middle of these two issues is actual beach access. FOMB has insinuated that shutting down the parking lot and access to the sandy beach constitutes complete removal of access to the beach. This, however, isn't really clear. FOMB could very well lose their lawsuit while beach access was maintained via a small road or walking path through Khosla's property. Despite what most of the press has indicated, the actual lawsuit isn't really about this.

Analemma_ 7y ago
> It seems fairly obvious to me (though perhaps not to others) that Khosla is in the right here. The private land is his. He can do what he wants with it. You and Khosla are both wrong. If an area is designated public land, you cannot de facto prevent all access by buying up all the land around it and refusing to provide any point of entry; you must provide an easement (and you can even charge a small fee for it, if you want). This is a very well-established bit of property law, and Khosla is only weaseling out of it on technicalities.
- harryh 7y ago
  I covered access in my third bullet point. You are responding to something I said in my second bullet point. The conflating of these two distinct points is one of the core areas of misunderstanding surrounding the case.
newman8r 7y ago
Maybe I'm being pedantic, but when you own waterfront land in California, I wouldn't say you can generally do what you want with it. The CA deserts, on the other hand, make a property owner feel like they actually own the land. For example, the Coastal Commission just prohibited hundreds of homes in Newport Beach from putting outdoor furniture on the sand, on their own private property (hundreds of meters from the actual water).

by harryh 7y ago

Analemma_ 7y ago

> It seems fairly obvious to me (though perhaps not to others) that Khosla is in the right here. The private land is his. He can do what he wants with it. You and Khosla are both wrong. If an area is designated public land, you cannot de facto prevent all access by buying up all the land around it and refusing to provide any point of entry; you must provide an easement (and you can even charge a small fee for it, if you want). This is a very well-established bit of property law, and Khosla is only weaseling out of it on technicalities.

harryh 7y ago
I covered access in my third bullet point. You are responding to something I said in my second bullet point. The conflating of these two distinct points is one of the core areas of misunderstanding surrounding the case.

newman8r 7y ago

Maybe I'm being pedantic, but when you own waterfront land in California, I wouldn't say you can generally do what you want with it. The CA deserts, on the other hand, make a property owner feel like they actually own the land. For example, the Coastal Commission just prohibited hundreds of homes in Newport Beach from putting outdoor furniture on the sand, on their own private property (hundreds of meters from the actual water).