Re: Is California Planning to Steal the Malibu Coastline from Residents?

On 2025-05-29 2:39 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

On May 28, 2025 at 8:34:51 PM PDT, "Rhino" <no_offline_contact@example.com>
wrote:
 

On 2025-05-28 10:18 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

  On May 28, 2025 at 6:43:17 PM PDT, "shawn" <nanoflower@notforg.m.a.i.l.com>
  wrote:
 

  On Thu, 29 May 2025 00:12:25 -0000 (UTC), BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com>
  wrote:
>

  On May 28, 2025 at 3:41:33 PM PDT, ""Adam H. Kerman"" <ahk@chinet.com>
wrote:
>

    BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

    May 28, 2025 at 12:56:17 PM PDT, Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:

    BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

   

    For the last six months, the rebuilding from the fires in the
    Palisades has proceeded-- unreasonably slowly, to be sure, but
    proceeded nevertheless. The same is true in Altadena, the site of
    the second great fire last January. But the residents of Malibu have
    been frozen in time by the state. Nothing is happening. No debris
    clean-up, no environmental studies, permit applications are held in
    limbo, etc. And now the residents are hearing rumors of the reason for
    this: the state of California doesn't like people living on the beach.
    State bureaucrats have always taken a dim view of homes built right on
    the shoreline but haven't been able to do anything about it because
    those homes were built in an era when people were mostly free to do
    as they liked and the massive regulatory state didn't exist. . . .

   

    I don't think you characterized this correctly. It's my understanding
    that there never were exclusive riparian rights and that the public
    always had access to the beaches but the state never enforced it to
    appeased wealthy people who illegally grabbed the beaches for
    themselves.

   

    The public was excluded but it was illegal to do so, but that's not like
    the Great Lakes in which the law is completely muddled, that the public
    can be legally excluded, and when lots were sold off in Chicago, lots on
    partly or entirely submerged lands were sold off because no one bothered
    to map the shoreline first.

   

    In my opinion, homes might be built a reasonable distance back from the
    shoreline but beach access must never be exclusive.

   

    Of course, you are going to tell me that the distance will be
    unreasonable, and I'm sure you're correct.

   

    The law in California is that the mean high tide line down to the water is
    public property and cannot be owned by anyone from the Mexico border up to
    Oregon. (Technically, there's an exception for the federal government in
    places like the SEAL training base in Coronado, the Army depot at Point
  Dume,
    the Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton, etc. The federal government does
  own
    those beaches and can exclude the public from them, especially during live
    military exercises.) . . .

        Thanks for all tnat. We're under that weird Supreme Court ruling that
    tried to interpret whether a common law rule establishing riparian
    rights which wasn't based on parliamentary law but royal decree. The
    decree established riparian rights to the center of water, which might
    have made sense if a small creek divided ajacent lots, but sure as hell
    does not make sense for the Great Lakes or even a navigable river.
        Did common law even apply? Did the federal government's rights get
    inherited by Illinois? I've tried to follow but I get bogged down.
        But we lack access rights except from a public beach and these do get
    blocked.
        So, exactly how far back from the high water mark is California trying
    to preclude rebuilding? It may not be a bad idea but it had damn well
    better compensate land owners.

>
  They (theoretically, just rumors, remember) want to take the whole thing
from
  the west/south side of Pacific Coast Highway to the water.
>
  E.g., in the below photo, everything south of the roadway would be condemned
  and appropriated by the state.
>
  https://ibb.co/9Stqkg1

>
  That is a lot of land
  A lot of very expensive land.

    Yeah, that's the one thing that makes me think it's just a pipe dream for
  them. Yes, they'd love to do it, but financially it's a non-starter given
the
  state's current dire economic situation.
 

All they have to do is think of a reason to seize the land that exempts
them from paying market value for the property.

 Well, thankfully we have a 5th Amendment that short-circuits all the normal
tricks they would play to do that.
 Our Takings Clause and the restrictions and requirements for the government
are pretty well settled not a lot of wriggle room for the reptiles in
Sacramento to get around it. Plus, the California Constitution is even *more*
restrictive on government than the 5th Amendment. It was written at a time
long before Sacramento had turned into a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

>
If Gov. Nuisance can establish some right of the local Indians to the
land between the PCH and the ocean, maybe he can get away with chasing
out the folks in Malibu WITHOUT compensation because they "stole" the
land from the Indians in the first place.

 That would still be a government seizure of private property and be subject to
the requirements of the 5th Amendment. Meaning the state would have to pay for
it even if they want to just give it back to the Indians. And even if they
did, it's not like the Indians could bar the public from being on the land. As
noted above, ownership of the state's beaches is legally prohibited, even by
Indian tribes.
 

I don't know the whole history of the Indian claim on Ipperwash but my perception of it is that the Indians took something that may or may not have been legitimately theirs (at least at one point), essentially at gun point, and the government didn't take it back. I'm not aware of any payments of money going either way so it appears that outright seizing that land was a successful strategy for the Indians - and a distinct setback for the rule of law, which seems to have been abandoned in this case.
made me think something along the same lines but this time perpetrated by the government *might* have a chance of clearing people out of Malibu. It looks like I'm wrong though. Given the strength of your Constitution, it looks like any seizure of land on the ocean side of the PCH *has* to be compensated, presumably at market rates. The cost of that would appear to be prohibitive given the dire state of California's finances.
Here's hoping developments in the last few years make Californians give their heads a mighty shake before they go to the polls next year and choose some sensible leaders for the first time in too many years.
--
Rhino