Why does it matter what the previous owner(s) did? The law states there must be public access to the beach. This is an 89 acre parcel of land, providing not even a single access point sounds like the owner could be blocking an appreciable amount of ocean frontage.
This is why at California beach areas and piers, old buildings have no access, but all remodeled ones do.
That all said, still amazingly entitled behavior by Khosla.
The fact that people feel entitled to tell others what to do with their own private property is sickening.
Land is a finite natural resource, coastline even more so. Restrictions that even the playing field such that the rich aren't able to privatize all the beachfront seems like a great idea to me.
Everyone else plays by these same rules. Khosla is very conspicuously using his outsized monetary influence to the pervert the spirit of the law.
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/photo/2014/08/t...
Oil rigs on the sand, not many yards away from the tide.
In this situation is sucks for regular people but in a lot more situations it benefits everyone else.
Limiting the power of individuals to completely dictate land use seems like it's better for the populous as a whole.
Accordingly, modern (sub)urban land ownership has very little to do with Spanish and English colonial land grants or US settlers. It comes with huge social benefits and is encumbered by extensive permitting, taxation, and use limits. You'll notice that Vinod Khosla isn't interested in exchanging his Half Moon Bay property for, say, an equivalent amount of land in North Dakota, where he might be permitted to block public access all day long.
That's not what you describe below.
> Instead of paying a Lord [sic] you could literally come to America and be given free land by the Federal government. It was a huge reason we rebelled against England in the first place.
I think the most important thing here is the free land aspect. Property ownership has never been "sacred" and was always subject to things like squatter's rights and other practical exceptions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession
> The principles of homesteading and squatter's rights embody the most basic concept of property and ownership, which can be summarized by the adage "possession is nine-tenths of the law," meaning the person who uses the property effectively owns it. Likewise, the adage, "use it or lose it," applies. The principles of homesteading and squatter's rights predate formal property laws; to a large degree, modern property law formalizes and expands these simple ideas.
There's a lot wrong with your comment:
1. It looks like all states have adverse possession laws [1].
2. 2-3 weeks wouldn't cut it anywhere to claim adverse possession. The shortest time required to be in possession is 5 years [1].
3. Why would you believe any anecdote that you read on Reddit? So many are lies posted to gain sweet e-points that all should be met with heavy skepticism.
I guess it's your right to not "believe in" squatters rights, but abandoned and underutilized property does society no good, and squatter's rights are a reasonable solution to that problem.
[1] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/state-state-rules-ad...
Yeah, because America had more lands than people, because European settlers (whether willingly or not) managed to wipe out most of its previous inhabitants. So it could literally afford to hand out free lands, and because it needed people, it lured people with that promise.
I'm not sure what's that got to do with property being sacred. Surely all those European lords and merchants also considered their own properties extremely sacred.
It is the law, that many beaches are public.
Edit: fixed autocorrect
The Coastal Commission was established in 1972 to improve access. The act grandfathered in properties with no access, but requires any improvement or change to pull a permit with the Commission. The Commission requires public access when approving any permit.
[1] Tidal beaches only. Beaches on lakes can be private
If you're arguing that it should be "taken" as an easement of necessity, that's separate, and a more political question.
Easements by necessity are granted generally when no other access is possible; they're not for convenience.
Additionally, (for private party transactions anyway) the party that creates the encumbrance is who is responsible for granting access. If you're not responsible for isolating the tract of land, then there's not (usually) any requirement to grant an easement. And even if there is, it wouldn't be a public easement.
And by responsible, I mean in terms of land transactions and changes in law, not putting up a gate.
The only reason this seems unusual is because a rich person is affected this time.
It's only unusual because when having a disagreement with the government, 99.99% of us can't afford to fight the government based on principle.
Another part of me is like - what's it to him? It seems like it'd only help him to make the beach public and be the good guy.
Can you not access it by boat? Does that count?
Maybe that's state law but legal easement is required in many municipalities, for example Kennebunkport will not let you surround a property with other people's property with no access to public property (the road)
People pay big bucks on cruises to get to "exclusive" beaches, and there are any number of "entrepreneurs" who will jump at the chance to turn a quick dollar to ferry people to exactly such a beach (albeit created through a legal technicality than natural features), plus throw in the gratuitous "ogle a billionaire's house" in marketing schticks on top to goose the customer buy rate.
There might be a corollary of the Streisand Effect at work here...
However, I'm not so clear that third parties wouldn't capitalize upon the exclusivity he just de jure created by restricting land access. But without actual ownership of the beach itself to turn it into private property, he might have unintentionally triggered a tragedy of the commons scenario, where he's raised the attractiveness of that particular spot of the beach without being able to charge and throttle access for it, and those third parties will be able to deliver that access and charge for it, without having to pay for the beach capex and opex itself.
This has the potential to be environmentally terrible, and I'd rather truly not see that happen, even though if it does happen it would make others in this thread happy on how much a Pyrrhic victory it would represent for Khosla.