Half Moon Bay:
Khosla’s granting of partial access to Martins Beach called ‘insufficient’
This week’s decision by a billionaire landowner to finally let people visit a beach near Half Moon Bay through his property does not sufficiently address his violations of state law guaranteeing public access to the coast, the California Coastal Commission said Thursday.
Representatives of venture capitalist Vinod Khosla told the commission that the gate blocking access to the road leading to picturesque Martins Beach is being reopened, but only between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., and not every day, said commission spokeswoman Noaki Schwartz.
“It’s a good first step, but it’s frankly insufficient,” Schwartz said. “That is not full public access, and there’s no certainty the gates will remain open. Many people at this time of year want to use the beach before they go to work — think surfers — or after work.”
Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, notified the commission of his plans Sept. 29, a little more than two weeks after the commission sent him a letter saying it would begin cease-and-desist proceedings, which would enable fines to be levied if he continued to block access to the sandy cove.
Schwartz said Khosla’s representative told the commission that his ability to grant public access would be subject to staffing and other factors, and that the beach may not be open all week. He was facing possible fines of $11,250 a day, or more than $4 million a year, for every violation, she said.
Although Khosla said he planned to open the gate, he did not do so until Wednesday, two days after lawyers for the Surfrider Foundation filed papers urging the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco to enforce its August ruling that Khosla could not block access to Martins Beach without a permit.
The Surfrider Foundation sued Khosla in 2013, arguing that the shoreline had been open to all comers since at least 1918 and belonged to the public. Lawyers for the foundation say Khosla is trying to repeal the California Coastal Act, the law passed by the state Legislature in 1976 protecting public access to 1,100 miles of California shoreline.
“The Coastal Act calls for full and regular access,” said Jennifer Savage, the California policy manager for the Surfrider Foundation. “That includes early morning surf and sunsets. Surfrider will not settle for less.”
Khosla’s lawyers could not be reached for comment this week, but they told the court in August that any interference by the state with his “fundamental right to exclude the public from private property” would be a type of confiscation — a “taking,” in legal terms — that requires compensation under U.S. Supreme Court property-rights rulings.