California authorities sue billionaire Vinod Khosla over beach access

The beach had been open to the public for decades before Khosla bought a 89-acre property in 2008 and shut off the lone road leading to it.

File image of Vinod Khosla | Jonathan Alcorn | Bloomberg

San Francisco: California upped the ante in venture capitalist Vinod Khosla’s long-running fight over his coastal property near San Francisco, suing the billionaire to maintain public access to a Pacific Ocean beach.

Until now, non-profit organizations have fought to maintain access to Martins Beach, a crescent-shaped cove an hour south of San Francisco. On Monday, California officials stepped into the fight for the first time by suing Khosla in state court.

The lawsuit drew a pointed response from a lawyer for Khosla who has said little publicly while litigating aggressively over the years.

“Since the property was purchased by our client, the state, and small activist groups, have endeavored to seize our client’s private property without compensation,” attorney Dori Yob Kilmer said in an email. “While such tactics are commonplace in communist systems, they have never been tolerated in the American system where the U.S. Constitution precludes the government from simply taking private property and giving it to the public.”

The beach had been open to the public for decades before Khosla bought the 89-acre property in 2008 for $32.5 million and shut off the lone road leading there. A state judge had ordered his holding companies to restore that access. While the road has often been opened, California officials said access hasn’t been consistent.

Khosla previously appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to review a lower-court ruling requiring him to allow beach goers access to the coast on a road that cuts through his property.

The California Coastal Commission had closely tracked the lawsuits filed by the Surfrider Foundation. The agency said in a statement that it has spent several years collecting data, including surveys, about public use of Martins Beach. In Monday’s complaint, the commission is asking for a judge to review new evidence to conclude the public “has acquired access rights” to the land based on historical use and California law.-Bloomberg