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

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.