Eminent Domain Report

For those of you who missed our recent webinar, "Living on the Edge: Managing Sea Level Rise in California", you can find a recording of the event posted on our website.  My colleagues Ben Rubin and John Erskine provided a great overview of ways to protect existing infrastructure and private property through coastal resiliency, what the models and data are suggesting on the future of sea level rise and the status of pending sea level rise legislation in California. I covered risks and possible solutions for public agencies and property owners, with a focus on how Coastal Commission and ...

On November 25, 2019, the California Court of Appeal ruled that the public’s use of a road for more than half a century to access Martin’s Beach was permissive, and therefore “did not ripen into a public dedication that would give the public a permanent right to use the property.” (See our coverage of that decision here.) In so ruling, the Court handed a seemingly significant defeat to the plaintiff, a group entitled Friends of Martin’s Beach, and a significant victory to Vinod Khosla, the billionaire who purchased the 90 acres of beachfront property and the gated access road to ...

Just in case you lost track of the Martins Beach saga, here is a quick summary and update.  According to reports, a couple of years after billionaire Vinod Khosla bought beachfront property in San Mateo County for over $30 million, his property manager locked a gate to a private access road on the property.  This access road, however, in addition to providing access to the property's residence, also had been used by the public to access Martins Beach (the parties do not agree as to whether the public use was permissive or under claim of right).

Following the gate closure, lawsuits have been ...