4 ms·
What I'd really like to see in cases like this is the state playing hardball with entitled billionaires. Why not use eminent domain to build a state road to th
by cletus 7y ago
What I'd really like to see in cases like this is the state playing hardball with entitled billionaires.
Why not use eminent domain to build a state road to the beach? I mean this will face a court battle too I'm sure but for a slice of land for a road you're not talking that much money (the property owner needs to be compensated by the Fifth Amendment) and building a few miles of road (I honestly don't know how much) also isn't that expensive.
I mean we're talking lawyer fees kind of money here right? Having a state road once and for all solve this issue, no?
I'm generally against governments simply placing the burden for public services onto private individuals. This is the real problem with things like rent control. If the government feels lower rents for certain individuals is a public good then why does the burden for this fall on the property owner instead of the state?
So one could argue the state should provide public access to something that is currently only accessible over private land, right?
California, build a road.
While we're at it, I've read about this story before but had missed the detail that there was a parking lot, a store and toilets at the site built and maintained by the prior owner.
How exactly is this not dedicating the road to public access? What tortured legal argument swindled the court here?
- henryfjordan 7y ago> While we're at it, I've read about this story before but had missed the detail that there was a parking lot, a store and toilets at the site built and maintained by the prior owner. How exactly is this not dedicating the road to public access? What tortured legal argument swindled the court here? The reasoning is that it wasn't public access, but rather a private business operating on the land. A restaurant, while "Open to the public" is not the same as a truly "public" space (like a state-owned road, or a national park).
- harryh 7y agoThe state doesn't even need to invoke eminent domain to build such a road as Khosla has offered several times to sell them the necessary land. The issue is that the state doesn't want to pay.
- ceejayoz 7y agoHe's offered at greatly inflated cost. $30M for a small strip of land when the entire property was purchased for $32M. https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-0424-lopez-khosla-beach-access-20160424-column.html https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-0424-lopez-kh...
- harryh 7y agoWhat is the value of a giant private beach? What is the value of that same beach with public access? It seems to me that the difference between those two numbers could easily be $30M.
- sdnlafkjh34rw 7y agoThe beach isn't owned by Khosla and is not private so I don't understand this argument. The value of the strip of land should be assessed at the market value of having a land route to an already public beach that previously didn't have land access (the beach has always been public, the argument is whether Khosla needs to provide access to it). Given its a tiny beach with moderate attendance, I'd argue the NPV is way less than $30m.
- harryh 7y agoA person has something worth X. The government wants to take a piece of that thing that reduces its value to Y. Therefore the government has to give the person (X-Y) dollars. That seems like a perfectly reasonable way to value what the government is taking away via eminent domain.
- cletus 7y agoSo if he paid $32M for the land and is arguing the government is destroying $30M of value by making a public beach (by law), well, public then he's arguing the property after the fact is worth $2M. So he should take $2M for it right? Or he'd have no object to the State giving him $32M and simply taking the whole thing, right? I'd be somewhat OK with these inflated property values estimates with eminent domain if the owner was forced to take $X-$Y for the remainder from any buyer.