Surfers lose fight to access Half Moon Bay beach

Surfer Konrad Wallace heads to Martins Beach in March on a road that a judge has ruled is private. Surfer Konrad Wallace heads to Martins Beach in March on a road that a judge has ruled is private. Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Surfers lose fight to access Half Moon Bay beach 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

A San Mateo County judge allowed a wealthy oceanfront property owner to block public access to a beach that has been enjoyed for at least a century by fishermen, tourists, sunbathers, families and surfers.

Superior Court Judge Gerald Buchwald ruled Thursday that a billionaire landowner can legally block the only road into the sandy Half Moon Bay haven known as Martins Beach.

Although the public is still allowed to use the 200-acre, crescent-shaped beach - with a distinctive pyramid-shaped rock and what surfers say are sweet waves - the ruling means the only way people can get there is from the ocean.

Gary Redenbacher, the lawyer who filed the suit on behalf of the group Friends of Martins Beach, said he plans to appeal the ruling, which he contends violates the California Constitution.

"The California Constitution specifically states that owners of beachfront property shall not prevent the public from having access to the beach ... (but) that provision was swept to the side," Redenbacher said. "I got an e-mail today from someone saying that now any rich guy can go and buy up all the land around a beach and exclude us poor people. That is, of course, what happened."

Treaty halted access

The decision was based on a unique set of circumstances dating back to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War in 1848. The treaty essentially required the United States to recognize Mexican land grants as long as the owner filed a claim. Jose Antonio Alviso, who owned the land grant at the time, filed such a claim, and the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed it in 1859. A patent for the 53-acre beachfront property, 6 miles south of Half Moon Bay, was issued to Alviso in 1865.

Judge Buchwald ruled that Alviso's patent, handed down over the generations, extinguished all public rights to the property, including beach access rights established under the public trust doctrine in the California Constitution, which was first drafted in 1879.

The decision is the latest blow in a long-running battle between local beach lovers and Vinod Khosla, a billionaire venture capitalist who paid $37.5 million for the property in 2008. The sale included 45 leased cabins along the coastal cliffs.

Before the sale, the beach had been owned for more than 100 years by the Deeney family, which set up the first cabin in 1918 and continued building through the 1950s. The Deeneys also built a store and began charging visitors for access and parking.

The fee to visit the beach was $5 at the time of the sale, but the new owner did away with that and instead put up the gate with a sign that said, "Beach closed, keep out."

Locals were outraged, and lawsuits have been flying back and forth ever since.

"We are very aware of the community concern about the situation, and it is unfortunate that we were forced into the legal process rather than a conversation with the community," said Jeff Essner, the lawyer representing Martins Beach LLC. "The property owner strives to be a constructive member of the community, but it is difficult to have this conversation without the legal clarification on property rights and an acknowledgment of those rights."

Separate lawsuits

Even without an appeal, the beach access issue is far from over. A group of surfers filed a separate lawsuit in March accusing the landowner of violating the California Coastal Act by painting over billboards, erecting locked gates in front of Martins Beach Road, and making other alterations to the landscape without permits.

"It will get interesting if his lawyers continue to claim that based on some ancient land grant he doesn't need to apply for land use approvals like 35 million other people do," said Mark Massara, the lawyer for the Surfrider Foundation, which expects to take its case to court next spring.