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Comment by dbroockman | Hacker News Reader

In Hawaii all beaches are public property and maintaining public access routes (and parking!) to all beaches is required by law. If rich Californians keep up this crap, they might just inspire a voter initiative that would make things even worse for them.

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It is also the law in California; However, this property is an exception because it was given to the previous owners by the Mexican government before California became part of the United States.

It wasn't just given to them by the Mexican government: it was also included in the US-Mexican treaties, and ratified after an appeal to the US Supreme Court.

Makes it a lot harder to deal with.

According to the apparently well-informed first comment[1] on that article, it's not really an exception. The first paragraph:

    As a former Coastal Commission staff member in the 1980s, 
    I've seen this scenario played out over and over. The so-called 
    issue of Spanish land grants pre-existing and somehow 
    superceding laws like the Coastal Act isn't an issue at 
    all -- land grants occurred in the early 1800s all over 
    California, so Martins Beach isn't any special or privileged 
    circumstance.

[1] http://blogs.kqed.org/science/audio/silicon-valley-billionai...

It's not clear to me if he understands that the current court case is invoking federal supremacy of US treaties over California law/constitution, which seems to be a brand-new argument. He compares it to a private homeowners association barring access to waterfront, which to me seems completely irrelevant.

I suspect the biggest issue here is that whoever sold him the property talked those lands right up as a selling point and he's discovering the reality is more complicated

I suspect he has lawyers to deal with that sort of thing. Do you really think he spent nearly $40 million based on what the seller told him about a treaty without checking with a lawyer?

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