Who owns the California coast? More than 30 years after voters
overwhelmingly approved the Proposition 20 Coastal Initiative, that
question still has intriguing answers.
Who owns the California coast? More than 30 years after voters overwhelmingly approved the Proposition 20 Coastal Initiative, that question still has intriguing answers.
When they passed that law in 1974, voters plainly intended to prevent expansion of the type of wall-to-wall development that still closes off much of the strand in Malibu and some other beach towns. The initiative passed by a 25 percent margin, guaranteeing that where private owners hold title to beachfront, they must provide public access to sandy areas still owned by the state.
And there was never any doubt that the public owns all beaches beyond the mean high tide line, as it existed in the early 1920s. No one in 1974 was quite sure where that line could be drawn in the sand, and there’s at least as much uncertainty today.
Which means disputes still arise over whether some property owners should control the entire beach all the way to the water, or much less. This can lead to disputes, as some owners call private guards or police when they see people they don’t recognize lolling about on sand they believe is theirs.
How important is this subject? With more than 240 million separate visits to California beaches each year, it’s pretty vital to public recreation. That’s more visits than received by all national parks put together.
So it’s plain the public wants to visit the beach. But doing so these days can take money, especially for anyone wanting to spend more than a few hours sunbathing before returning to an inland home.
Parking fees are up everywhere, and even state park campgrounds – where summer reservations usually must be made months in advance – are getting more expensive. Overnight campsites at state beaches like Leo Carrillo in Malibu, Patrick’s Point on the North Coast or Pfeiffer Big Sur now go for between $11 and $35 a night, almost double what the price was before last year.
There are also a dozen or so hostels near the waterfronts of places like Santa Monica, Pescadero and San Francisco, offering accommodations for as low as $17 dormitory style or $45 for their very few private rooms. At the same time, there’s been an vast increase in luxury hotel rooms at the beach since 1974.
Taken together, all this means at least some of the intent of the 1976 Coastal Act, designed by legislators to make permanent the public access sought by the Coastal Initiative, has been achieved. This law announces that “Lower cost visitor and recreational facilities shall be protected, encouraged and, where feasible, provided.”
Yet, in many places it hasn’t happened quite that way. Sure, there are public accessways between some coastal private properties, footpaths leading to the beach. But often they’re unmarked, the signs marking them having been torn down. Some are even blocked by resentful adjacent property owners.
“I think the Coastal Act is a qualified success,” wrote Steve Scholl, former deputy director of the state Coastal Commission, and author of “Can You Afford a Night on the Coast?” an article that appeared in the quarterly journal of the California Coastal Conservancy. “There are more places to stay along the coast than before, a lot of new hotels and bed-and-breakfasts. But many are expensive. The goal of meeting affordability has not been met as well as the goal of having new developments fit in well environmentally.”
And yet, the Coastal Initiative has prevented development of anything like Cancun in California. In that Mexican resort on the Caribbean Sea, it’s possible to walk almost 10 miles along the main north-south road – parallel to the area’s bright white sands – and never see a beach because all the waterfront property belongs to hotels and high-rise condominiums. There’s also nothing in California like the hotel rows of Miami Beach, Waikiki and Kaanapali Beach.
“It could have been much worse,” says Scholl. For sure, there was pressure for Cancun-style development here, but it was thwarted.
Nevertheless, if you’d like the best views of the coast near Torrey Pines – other than those from a state park trail – it will cost between $325 and $625 per night to stay at the Lodge at Torrey Pines. The price is about the same at the 261-room Ritz-Carlton high atop a bluff at Half Moon Bay, west of San Mateo. The Bacara Resort in Santa Barbara County is even pricier, with rooms running from $425 to $895 per night.
All these developments came after passage of the Coast Act and all fit in nicely with the landscape. Perhaps the champion for fitting into the landscape is the Post Ranch Inn at Big Sur, where the cheapest room goes for $435 a night and the Ocean House for $915. But every room at the Post Ranch Inn, which is affiliated with a Fijian resort designed by famed explorer Jacques Cousteau, is deep in trees or covered with natural-looking growth, and the restaurant is built atop a sharp cliff, with stunning views and equally breathtaking prices on its menu.
Meanwhile, private real estate near the sea almost anywhere in California has not been part of this year’s overall drop in U.S. real estate prices.
So, yes, the hoi polloi can still go to the beach, and if they reserve far enough ahead, they can even stay overnight. But it’s clear who still owns most of the coast or can afford to buy the privilege of enjoying it: The rich.
Tom Elias is author of the book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. His e-mail address is td*****@ao*.com
