Remote San Mateo County beach to become public park
Tunitas Creek Beach, south of Half Moon Bay, to be sold to county for $3.2 million
A breathtaking, mile-long stretch of sandy beach on the remote San Mateo County coast, flanked by towering cliffs and once owned by rock singer Chris Isaak, is set to become a new public park — the first of its kind in 51 years.
The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors is scheduled today to buy Tunitas
Creek Beach for $3.2 million in a below-market sale from the Peninsula Open Space Trust, a nonprofit Palo Alto environmental group that purchased it from the famed crooner for $5 million in 2017.
If the county supervisors approve the deal, as expected, it will be the first major coastal beach added to the San Mateo County parks system since Fitzgerald Marine Reserve in Moss Beach in 1969.
“It is a secluded, wonderful, beautiful spot,” said San Mateo County Supervisor Don Horsley, a former sheriff who has led efforts to preserve the area. “It is an awe-inspiring place. You cannot help but be moved by the cliffs and beach. It is going to be something people are going to really enjoy.”
Supervisors also are to vote today to set up a new fund to cover the costs of building restrooms, hiking trails, picnic tables, interpretive signs, overlooks and parking at the property. The $7.2 million fund also would cover other costs, such as setting up a water system and tearing down a ramshackle house on the cliffs above the beach that has been boarded up for several years.
Agreements between the county and the Peninsula Open Space Trust call for the new county park to be opened to the public by the fall of 2022.
“Our goal is to have safe, appropriate public access,” said Walter Moore, president of the Peninsula Open Space Trust. “It’s really remarkable we will