California Surveyors Forums

Interesting story/case.

The Pacific Legal Foundation has apparently dug into the box, essentially taking the stand that this beach is private because it falls within the boundaries of a confirmed Mexican land grant: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/09/21/671894 ... ights.html

On the other hand, Superior Court judge ordered access across private property to be opened up: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localn ... source=rss


Roy Minnick stated in 1992 in his "Water boundaries for California Surveyors", 2d. Ed.:

"Even if the state could not assert fee title to lands, within a Mexican grant, many feel that such lands may be impressed with the public trust burdens, including those which Mexican law, at the time of the grant, would have recognized. Mexican land grants were examined and confirmed under Mexican law, and the Mexican law at that time apparently recognized the existence of public use rights in the seashore, rivers and ports roughly analogous to those recognized under the American common law public trust doctrine. In some respects, Mexican public use rights were broader in that they extended to the extraordinary high tide line rather than to the mean high tide line, they conferred the right to use privately owned river banks, and they may have conferred a right of access over privately owned littoral land. These public rights would not have required confirmation by the Federal Land Commission and arguably devolved to the Federal Government as part of the public domain and thence to the state as public trust property in the same way as sovereign trust lands. Present litigation may have settled this question."

I don't see anything in Flushman's "Water Boundaries" that would lead me to consider that the above reference beach would be private, and not subject to the shoreline public trust, or similar pre-existing Mexican public rights under a confirmed land grant.

Of course access to the beach is another, but related, issue.

Anybody care to comment?

Under Spanish & Mexican law, (Las Siete Partidas)the boundary of sovereign land was to the highest reach of the waves, whether in summer or winter.

Where the grantee would receive benefit of interpretation under the law by which the grant was made, it is so construed. For example, the boundary is along a navigable stream and the description calls to the center of the stream - then the bed under the half within the rancho bounds is privately owned and attached to the title of the adjacent upland parcel. Only the other half of the bed is considered sovereign land of the State. If the entire width of the navigable stream is within the rancho, the entire bed is attached to the adjacent upland parcel.

Along the coast, CA law places the sovereign boundary at the OHWM, which is most often well below the highest wash of the waves. Coastal rancho boundaries (but not necessesarily title) are interpreted according to CA law because that gives the rancho grantee the greater right.

Summa Corp. v. State Lands Commission, 466 US 198 was primarily about a title issue. This case sounds like neither a beach title matter (although the news story attempts to portray it as such) nor a boundary matter. It is about access to a portion of beach that otherwise has no landward access.

Article 10, Section 4 of the State constitution prohibits any private entity from prohibiting access to any tidal or other navigable waterway, but if Martin's Beach is on the open coast, then access to the waterway (the Pacific Ocean) can obviously be attained easily at countless other locations. One could access Martin's Beach by boat or possibly by swimming to it (May or may not be reasonably possible).

If a person were to access the beach from the water, the sovereign land reaches to the OHWM, which means that there is some portion of the beach which is public most of the time.

It sounds as if the previous owners allowed permissive use of the access road over the upland parcel by charging a fee. No fee paid, no permission to cross. I do not see how that can now be parlayed into a public easement or used as a basis for forcing the current owner to continue allowing access.

I just read the text of the bill mentioned in the story and will reserve comment on that. I have no idea if there have already been talks between the landowner and the CSLC.

I heard on the news last night that the judge ruled in favor of the surfers, and public access has to be restored across private property. The individual who purchased Martin's Beach made his money with Sun Microsystems and wanted to make this his private beach.

We use to have an annual classic car run to Martin's Beach and it truly is a beautiful location! Michael Pallamary was keeping up on this case and I expect to hear a good story from him. I do not know if he was directly involved with this or not.

Saw a few news stories on it. Many seem to leave out some details that make it seem like the rich guy is just out to ruin everyone's recreational opportunities. Other news stories balance it out and add a few details that place the rich guy in a little better light.

He bought the place and continued granting access as had the owner before him. That is, he granted permission to cross his property to access the beach in exchange for a $15 parking fee.

Previous owner regularly closed access for things like certain holidays, bad weather, and when it wasn't convenient for him to be around to collect the parking fees.

County tried to force new owner to allow access year round, and demanded that he only charge $2 parking fee (what previous owners charged in 1973).

Rich guy didn't like govt dictating to him who he allows to go across his property and under what conditions, so he had his property manager close and lock the gate.


So, if you had property over which you allowed limited and paid permission to cross on the same basis as the previous owner, and then the county told you to let people across whenever they wished (not only when it was convenient for you to do so), and to reduce the fee from what your predecessor had charged to 13% of what your predecessor had charged, and you had no development activity or other activities going on that appeared to give the county any authority in the matter, how might you react?

In a different light, let's say you buy a gas station for whatever reason. Your predecessor was selling gas at about $4/gal. You didn't buy the station to gouge people, so you continue basing your price on the same criteria and so continue to charge about $4/gal. You close the station at night and on a few holidays, and maybe at times when you can't be there and can't get an employee to cover.

One day you check your mail and find that the County has assumed the authority to require you to remain open 24/7/365, and to sell your gas at fifty cents/gal. And they haven't mentioned anything about lowering your property taxes either, but have threatened to fine you if you do not lower your price and if you do close your station at any time. How would you respond?

It will be interesting to see how it comes out on appeal.

Does the rich guy escape liability if someone gets hurt on his property? Seems like he has to ramp up his insurance to cover this sort of thing.

The gas station example is invalid.

We are talking about the coastal act here.

I have zero sympathy for the wealthy. Over the past thirty years they have nearly squeezed the middle class out of existence through their use of wealth to influence government and tax policy. You want to tip the playing field your way via undue influence on our political institutions then don't cry on my shoulder when the little guy wins a minor victory.

Relax. Stay off the political, if possible. The aim is to have a professional discourse, about how to make things right for all....

The aim is to have a professional discourse, about how to make things right for all....

That's a pretty good working definition of politics, once you remove money. (I almost said "and criminal activity," but that would be redundant, since it always follows money.)

From what Evan says sounds like govt is involved so how do you remove politics?
I agree with Evans analogy.

On a similar note RR crossings come to mind. Ever see the signs at a crossing that say "Right to cross revocable at any time."

The rich are not fans of mine because of how they own the politicians. But rich or poor this is a citizens private land. Today govt has too much say over how private land can be used by the owner.

Govt huts everyone. Mother Teresa wanted to turn a 3 story bldg in NY into a shelter. The city required she install a elevator for the handicapped. Cost of the elevator was beyond the budget so the plans for the shelter were dropped.

IMO, it shouldn't be about rich or poor or politically favored groups or whether you, or anyone "feels" that there should be public access mandated over this particular parcel owned by this particular person. I don't know anything about this landowner other than he is a billionaire via high tech business. Making rules based on those criteria is how you end up with policy that has unintended consequences later on. Like forcing Uncle Fred and Aunt Ethel living off their social security and savings to allow parking on and access across their 2 acre riverfront lot because it's a really great spot to launch rafts from and it's just not fair to make the rafters, most of whom don't own riverfront property, go to the bridge and public parking area 3 miles upstream to get to the river.

The coastal act was brought in because a change in access falls under the definition of development for purposes of the act. I haven't read the relevant portion of the act, so don't know if revocation of permission by a private party across one's land to other private parties was what was intended, or if it was that construction of a different access route or improvement of an existing route was what was intended to fall within the definition of development.

It seems to me that the CCC has jurisdiction over zoning and building matters. I would be a bit surprised if the Superior Court Judgment based on the Coastal Act having authority over title matters survives through the whole gamut of appeals. More concerning will be how any State constitutional issues are interpreted.

Jim Frame wrote:That's a pretty good working definition of politics, once you remove money. (I almost said "and criminal activity," but that would be redundant, since it always follows money.)

Good one. ;)

Ditto Mr. John and Mr. Frame.
I'm falling in line with Mr. Page, and I was hoping he would provide some input.

One of the lawsuits pushing for opening the access is based on the following:

California Constitution, Article 10, Section 4: "No individual, partnership, or corporation, claiming or possessing the frontage or tidal lands of a harbor, bay, inlet, estuary, or other navigable water in this State, shall be permitted
to exclude the right of way to such water whenever it is required for
any public purpose, nor to destroy or obstruct the free navigation
of such water; and the Legislature shall enact such laws as will give
the most liberal construction to this provision, so that access to
the navigable waters of this State shall be always attainable for the
people thereof."


I asked the following question to one of the attorneys involved in that suit, and I submit to my surveyor brethren:

"How might you interpret a hypothetical situation where multiple contiguous
say 40'x80' lots front the ocean, and there exists a public beach access
easement somewhere nearby. Do you believe the public has right of way over
each parcel to access the beach?"

The answer I received was basically, "let the judge decide."

Hmm. Really?

I think at one time, maybe still, anyone in Malibu that wanted to build a sea wall to protect their property was required by the CCC to give a public access easement along one sideline so the public could access the beach.

land butcher wrote:I think at one time, maybe still, anyone in Malibu that wanted to build a sea wall to protect their property was required by the CCC to give a public access easement along one sideline so the public could access the beach.

I've been involved with one or two of these. I've never seen a requirement for an easement on the sideline, but have seen a requirement for a 10' easement adjacent to the seawall. The reason being that the seawall is to prevent the beach from eroding. As a beach naturally erodes, a band of beach between the LWM and HWM moves inland with the erosion at a more or less constant width. Place a seawall there and the low and high water marks can conceivably both end up on the face of wall at some point, leaving no beach area for the public to walk along. If the State is going to allow the wall to protect the private property at the potential expense of the naturally occurring public beach area, then a walkway corridor along that wall should be reserved to mitigate the loss of beach. Seems like a reasonable tradeoff.

Evan,

Here's an interesting merger and resubdivision in the City of Oxnard in 1989, where the State Lands Commission entered into an agreement with the developer to provide access strips to the beach alongside those lots which had not been built on yet.

The ownership lines were pulled back for the vacant lots to coincide with the furthest shoreside decks of adjacent lots.

Interesting, Warren. I'm not directly familiar with this one but am not surprised that such an agreement would happen on a multi-lot subdivision. I see those access ways and lot shortenings being similar to a requirement to dedicate extra road right of way, or dedicate parcels within the subdivision for school or park purposes.

I haven't seen it on a single parcel application to install shore protection unless it was to preserve an already existing public access.

In either instance, still different from the Martin's Beach case.

Judge says open the gate

http://http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Judge-orders-billionaire-to-open-gate-to-Martins-5938974.php

The last time the National Debt was zero, Andrew Jackson was President. It is impossible to pay it off with our Debt based fiat currency AKA Federal Reserve dollars. If every dollar in existence was put against the principle the interest would have to be paid so more dollars would have to be created, hence more debt. I'll have to look up the current value of the money supply, I'm not sure if there is enough in existence to zero out the debt.

This is why the Rothschilds say, "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws!"

This is why the Rothschilds say, "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws!"

Though widely disseminated across the Internet, there is considerable doubt that any Rothschild ever uttered these words, or any like them (there are many variations on the statement floating around). The closest I've found to an authoritative source (i.e. one that doesn't read as though written by a raving lunatic) is http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4311, which suggests that the "quote" was fabricated by Senator Robert L. Owen and used in a speech in or about 1939.