Yearslong Martins Beach battle appears headed for court — again

The long-running dispute over access to Martins Beach, near Half Moon Bay, is slated to continue playing out in the courts.

A state judge earlier this week issued a tentative ruling that would allow a lawsuit filed by a pair of state agencies seeking to ensure public access to the beach to proceed. Assuming he finalizes the ruling, San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Raymond Swope will have denied an attempt by the property’s owners — a pair of companies tied to Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla — to have the case thrown out the suit on technicalities.

The motion “is denied,” Swope said in his tentative ruling.

Martins Beach is located about seven miles south of Half Moon Bay on Highway 1. Prior to Khosla’s purchase in 2008 of a pair of beachfront properties adding up to 89 acres, the public had been able to access the beach via Martins Beach Road, which runs through them.

But in 2010, the property owners permanently locked a gate leading to that road, barring the public from entering. In California, beaches are public, but roads and paths that lead to them aren’t necessarily, especially if they go through private property and access through them is controlled.

The locking of the gate led to a trio of lawsuits as well as legislation intended to restore public access. Two of those lawsuits have since been resolved — one in Khosla’s favor, another against.

Khosla subsequently reopened access to the road — reportedly on an intermittent basis. But with public access to the beach still in doubt, the California Coastal Commission and State Lands Commission filed the latest lawsuit in 2020.

The agencies are seeking to have the court rule that the public access to Martins Beach provided by past owners via the road essentially established for the public a permanent right to use the road for that purpose. Khosla, for his part, argues that one of the already resolved cases determined that the public doesn’t have a right to use the road.

In a motion to the court last fall, Khosla’s lawyers attempted to have the commissions’ case dismissed, arguing that they didn’t have the legal right to file suit to ensure public access via that road. But in his tentative ruling, Swope affirmed the agencies did, in fact, have a right to file the suit. He also argued that the argument the commissions are making about past practices establishing a permanent right of access is distinct from the argument made in the previous case, which the commissions didn’t participate in.

Khosla and his attorney, Dori Yob Kilmer of Hopkins Carley, didn’t respond to requests for comment on Swope’s decision or the case.

In a blog post in 2018, the venture capitalist argued that the fight was over the principle of property rights . He charged that the state had treated him differently than the prior owners and that it was illegitimately trying to coerce him into giving free access to the road.

State legislation passed last decade directed the Coastal Commission to attempt to negotiate a purchase of access to the road or, if the negotiations failed, to use eminent domain to acquire it. But the state only set aside $1 million for the purchase. Khosla reportedly said he would sell access via the road for $30 million .

Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Tsukamaki declined to comment on the decision and the case, as did State Lands Commission spokeswoman Sheri Pemberton.

Officials with the California Coastal Commission were not immediately available for comment.

That the judge did not throw out the commissions’ suit is a good thing, said Staley Prom, a senior legal associate with the Surfrider Foundation. An advocacy group that fights for public access to beaches, Surfrider won its own suit against Khosla.

In that case, which ended in 2018 when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal, state courts ruled that Khosla’s decision to lock the gate and post signs warning the public to keep out constituted a change of use that required a permit from the Coastal Commission. To this day, Khosla has declined to file for a permit and has continued to deny that he needs one, Prom said.

Without that permit, “the access is supposed to be open,” Prom said. “There should be free and rightful access happening, but that is not happening.”

Khosla will have another opportunity to have the case dismissed before trial. His attorneys have filed a motion for summary judgment in the lawsuit; Swope is scheduled to hold a hearing on that motion in September.

Assuming Swope denies that motion, the case is slated to head for trial in April.