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Comment by hyperliner | Hacker News Reader

He does not need to live there to want to protect his property.

It seems that he owns a property that has a path that the public thinks is public property. It seems legally the property is private. At least, I have not been able to find an easement description.

In a state and country where the notion of private property constitutes a sacred principle, it seems to me he deserves compensation from the public. If this happened to me, I certainly would demand it, but I am glad a rich person with resources can fight this for me. Otherwise, who is to stop people onme neighborhood to cut through my property to access the park behind my house?

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California courts have ruled it not his property several times. Despite mounting throwing never ending $$ to stall in court and mounting ridiculous legal theories of literally citing Pirate Law from the 1700s, he keeps losing again and again. It's a public beach, it's always been a public beach. It wasn't like it was a secret when he bought the property, he just thought he was special and smart enough and rich enough to get his way.

This isn't about big evil government encroaching on property rights. It's keeping land that was already public land public. If you owned a house and I bought up all the property around your house and then put a gate across and locked your driveway, you'd still own and have legal access to your house. That's what Kholsa is trying to do.

> He does not need to live there to want to protect his property.

Did you read the article? It is not his property, it is public access to a public beach. He deserves compensation for losing in court and continue to break the law with which the court upheld? I'm confused, did we read the same article?

(You may want to click in the linked article in the main article that OP posted)

"So the coastal commission tried to broker a compromise, chief of enforcement Lisa Haage said. Officials offered to consider moving the access road, to find a nonprofit to operate the entry and to close on rainy days when the beach was muddy. But the talks went nowhere."

If it was clear cut, why is the Chief of Enforcement accommodating alternatives?

Why not?

She's not trying to crush him. Her goal is to provide access to the beach--which these solutions would. It would obviously be great if he just went along with the legal requirements, but moving the road or getting a non-profit to operate a gate is better than a protracted court battle, and it wouldn't hurt if everyone ended up happy at the end.

But it would hurt if everyone ended up happy in the end; it would reinforce the bad behavior of billionaires who believe they're above the law.

Resolving the dispute in a way that everyone is happy with may reinforce bad behavior in that you can get away with closing the path for N years; but at the end of the day, if there is equivalent access to the beach with the old path and a new path that the landowner is happier with, the public still has the same access going forward as they did before, and it likely would have been allowed if he had gone through permits.

So it also shows that in the end, even billionaires need to follow the law; and that its probably a better use of their time to work with the commission to find a good solution, instead of to fight the law.

They are, by making the law..

> If it was clear cut, why is the Chief of Enforcement accommodating alternatives?

Because the Commission has finite resources and devoting them to dealing with a billionaire that's devoted to tying up the legal system as long as possible isn't efficient use of them if a compromise can be reached at far less cost in litigation and the remaining resources directed to other priorities.

Because the very wealthy are coddled and can get away with just about anything in the US.

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