Opinion: Corporations 'buying up' coastal properties in Oceanside are a profound problem

Re "More work is needed on Oceanside’s short-term rental rules. ‘Corporations are buying up the coast.'" ( March 26 ): The city of Oceanside is debating "mini-hotels" and the destruction of neighborhoods by profiteers. We have no problem clearing thousands of homes to build or widen a freeway. Yet we’ve allowed our own publicly elected politicians and their private profiteers to take control of California’s most precious public resource — the coast.

It’s plainly and simply a racket. It’s time for voters to pass a law that establishes coastal lands extending at least two miles from the mean tide as a public resource to be owned and managed by the public. These lands must be acquired through negotiation or condemnation and replanned for more intense use so that millions of people have access to the coast — access that is now limited to a few thousand wealthy and politically connected private property owners. The public can then profit from the increase in property values and ocean-view beach space instead of the racketeers.

— Albert Perdon, De Luz

This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune .