Legislature passes bill for public access to Martins Beach

Billionaire Vinod Khosla may need to negotiate with the state if the governor signs the bill. Billionaire Vinod Khosla may need to negotiate with the state if the governor signs the bill. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 17 Caption Close Legislature passes bill for public access to Martins Beach 1 / 17 Back to Gallery

The California Senate passed legislation Thursday requiring the state to negotiate with billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla to restore public access to the sandy haven known as Martins Beach.

The bill introduced by Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, passed 23-9 and heads to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature. It is the latest legal broadside in a battle with the property owner, who bought the beachfront land near Half Moon Bay in 2008 and two years later closed the gate to the only road leading to the popular beach.

The proposed law, SB968, would require the State Lands Commission to negotiate with Khosla for one year in an attempt to find a solution. If an agreement can't be reached within a year, according to the bill, the commission would have to acquire all or a portion of the property by eminent domain to create a public access road.

The bitter dispute has focused national attention on California laws that are supposed to guarantee public access to coastal areas. It has also provoked widespread public criticism of Khosla, who paid $32.5 million for the property, which includes 45 leased cabins along the coastal cliffs.

Martins Beach had been open to the public for more than a century before Khosla closed it, prompting lawsuits by a group called Friends of Martins Beach and by the Surfrider Foundation. The Coastal Commission accused him of making road and drainage improvements without a permit.

At stake, they say, is the 1972 California Coastal Zone Conservation Initiative, which created the 12-member California Coastal Commission, and the California Coastal Act, passed in 1976, which prohibits homes or developments from blocking public access to beaches and makes the entire coast, including all beach property below the mean high tide line, public property.

The attorneys for Surfrider, which filed the lawsuit last year, insist that Khosla's actions constitute development under the Coastal Act because they change how the public uses the beach. Fundamental changes like that require a permit from the Coastal Commission, which was never obtained.

San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Gerald Buchwald ruled in October that Khosla had a legal right to block access. He based the decision on the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War and required the United States to recognize Mexican land grants. The ruling said, in essence, that the beach had been in private hands long before laws were passed requiring public access to the coast.

Buchwald's decision, which is being appealed, did not outlaw public access to the crescent-shaped beach, but the only way for the public to get there now is via the ocean.

Khosla, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems Inc., said he kept the beach open after the sale despite the $500,000 to $600,000 a year in costs for maintenance, liability insurance, infrastructure and other expenses. He said insurance alone was $30,000 a year, and he just could not continue to absorb the losses.