Comment by privateSFacct | Hacker News Reader

Comment by privateSFacct | Hacker News Reader

Just so we're clear since I see a lot of comments here about stealing and "blatant" criminality.

He was ordered to private access at $2 per car, with no adjustment for inflation, across his property to a beach, by a government entity. This despite some reasonable case law on the idea that if you charge people to access something, you can change that price or go out of that business if you want.

In addition, he WON this case in CALIFORNIA at the beginning, though I thought on a bit of a ridiculous approach

To catch folks up, he's now been on a super long losing streak, and the US Supreme Court did not take up the case. It's a bit hard to see the state getting the road they want for $300K they claim it's worth, and they are passing law after law to try and get it. My guess is it ends up more in the 1.5M range?

Now if the government REALLY wanted to give the public access to nature - they'd ban all the STUPID parking restrictions near natural resources. Every rich area in California has some kind of state park or regional park maintained by all our government dollars, but the rich people living near it do this totally wild weekend only parking restriction on these major roads all around the entrance to the park, so no one but the rich folks living right there can access the park. It's kind of genius. You literally have a huge wide road, with parking on the sides NORMALLY during the week, but during weekends to keep poor folks from parking on the road and using the park, they ban weekend parking on this main road and all side streets for a few miles from park entrance.

I think that part of the article might be confused.

The Coastal Act requires that you provide access. It encourages cheap parking and other amenities and the owner can charge for these—as the previous one did. Improvements to these can also be requested/required if you want to further develop the property. However, I don’t think they force you to offer parking. This email from the city, which was part of the trial, mentions both the parking and the access, but only notes, repeatedly, that the access needs to be preserved:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw9SrI2nMR-WVVhiMVZtS3Rxd0U...

Yeah, a lot of the details are getting lost in the noise.

Firstly, should the government give the person a right to charge at all for access to the beach? If they have the right, do they have a commensurate responsibility (provide a bathroom)? If they have both, how do we decide what the fair value is?

The problem is someone reading this thinks "no, don't charge, and no bathroom. That works for me!" Someone else thinks "Of course they should charge a fair amount. What are we? Animals?"

But this isn't supposed to be a battle of our moods and desires. Its supposed to be a principled discussion. What is the principle? At least VK puts one forward: he thinks private property rights should trump some others. Surf riders also has a principle: the public should have access to the beaches.

I agree with both. So lets say that we think private property rights should be respected AND beach access preserved. What is the best way to balance it? Perhaps the minimal private property rights consistent with beach access? Or the minimal access consistent with property rights?

As you have eluded, the entire case arises from a fundamental contradiction: You cannot charge for access if you want to provide equal access. Any non-zero access fee will exclude some part of the population. Once you fix the law by stipulating that private property owners must ensure free access to the beach, Khosla has no case. If borders of the private property violates the constraints set in constitution, those borders becomes invalid.

I'm amazed that general public is US is perfectly fine with government charging public to enter in to their own public land, sometime with outrageous fees that would be unaffordable by people on subsistence and who would like to live off the grid. No one takes an issue that public is already paying taxes for this! Using public lands is not a privilege but the fundamental right of the people. In many European countries it is actually prohibited to charge access to public lands in their constitution.

If the government REALLY wanted to give public access to the beach, they could have negotiated a footpath across this guy's property and build a parking nearby.

The government doesn't have to negotiate for anything: the law is that access must be provided. The law doesn't specify anything about amenities, just access.

Really? And where would be the road, and how wide? No compensation? Access 24/7?

Who builds, maintains the road? If a person dies there or a car is stolen who is responsible etc etc...

It's not as simple, that is HIS property.

The law has existed since the '70s, I'm pretty sure these issues have been settled before.

"Access 24/7?" in particular is one of the point in the discussion: the law says he can change the hours, but must get a permit, which he refuses to do.

Access doesn't mean a road is required. He simply cannot prevent people from accessing the beach, whether by foot, bicycle or other means typically employed.

If Vinod supplies a road he'd be responsible for maintenance. The other questions are handled already: he'd do the same thing as if someone died in his house or a car was stolen from his driveway. Any member of the public who observes crimes like this can also report them

>>Access doesn't mean a road is required. He simply cannot prevent people from accessing the beach, whether by foot, bicycle or other means typically employed.

So you can use all his property to access the beach, including unnecessarily zig-zags and passing right by his front door, 100 (or whatever) feet away from the beach? Why not require him to give people 80% of the rooms in his house too?

If people have to use his property it has to be done with a delicate balance between public and PRIVATE property rights. That's what courts are for. Judging by some of the comments here, I'm kinda glad he sued.

The law is not a dumb computer that executes code. It doesn't have to specify the means and constraints on access to the level of detail you are arguing for, nor should it be required to: the law when written could not account for all possible scenarios and it is not rational to have that expectation.

> they could have negotiated a footpath

If they really wanted a footpath, and pre-existing law didn't already mandate maintaining access, they would take it (either in fee simple, or just an easement) by eminent domain.

What parks are you talking about? Any park I'm aware of with parking restrictions has them because the roads are narrow and people suck at parking. They become so crowded that the road becomes impossible to navigate.

East side Santa Cruz, near pleasure point, has weekend parking restrictions.

Ross - streets that have plenty of free parking (the houses there are mansions) and these streets HAVE SPACES for parking on them, have Sat, Sun and Holidays no parking signs from 6AM to 6PM.

I'd be curious how well off places like ross are, seems like a different set of rules up there.

This kind of parking restriction gets me incensed as well.

It applies in rich parts of town in general.

I'm paying MY tax money for these roads but only people with a residential permit can use them.

Just because you've contributed an infinitesimal amount to a road doesn't necessarily mean you have a right to it, just as how I don't have a right to drive a tank around because my taxes are funding it. Taxes are not the 1:1 transactional relationship that it's commonly conceptualized as - it's part of the whole social contract, and different groups benefit differently.

I at least gain some marginal benefit from that tank in the sense that it provides me protection.

Subsidizing wealthy peoples parking nets me no marginal benefit.

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