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

On May 29, 2025 at 5:37:20 PM PDT, "Rhino" <no_offline_contact@example.com>
wrote:

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.

A *lot* people are looking at what Rick Caruso is doing in the Palisades--
everything from setting up legal collectives to give people affordable access
to lawyers who know how to push permits through the bureaucracy to partnering
with Silicon Valley to leverage AI to turbo-charge the permit approval process
and get them evaluated and approved in 1/10th the normal time-- while Karen
Bass does nothing but spout platitudes and slogans ("L.A. Forward!") and
they're wishing they'd voted for him instead of Bass when they had the chance.
They coming to realize that basing their vote on skin color and genitals isn't
actually a smart thing to do.

Caruso is getting shit done while Bass dithers and passes the buck.