Quick Take
A long-running dispute over public coastal access in Aptos nears a courtroom resolution, after the Rio Del Mar Beach Island Homeowners Association doubled down in the face of a historic, multimillion-dollar fine from the state for fencing off a public walkway.
Is a stretch of sidewalk off of Beach Drive in Aptos a public beachfront walkway or a private patio?
The debate has irked residents who want access to the 800-foot stretch of concrete path, and isolated the members of the Rio Del Mar Beach Island Homeowners Association, who erected a green, chain-link fence to block off the area for their own use.
The question of whether an HOA can privatize a part of publicly declared land has drawn attention up, down and beyond California. Later this year, the public could finally have an answer as the sides are expected to take the issue to trial.
In late 2023, that state agency, the California Coastal Commission, voted to issue an unprecedented $4.8 million fine against the HOA for failing to bring down the barricade and allow public use of the path. Instead, the HOA doubled down: It built a sturdier fence and sued the Coastal Commission, claiming it didn’t receive a fair hearing before the fine was levied.
For the past year, the issue has largely remained out of public view, with lawyers from each side quibbling over language in the lawsuit filings. However, a representative from the Coastal Commission and a lawyer for the HOA each told Lookout they expect the trial to begin this year, and as early as the summer.
The disagreement over the walkway dates back nearly 50 years. The Coastal Commission argues that when it issued a development permit to the HOA in 1980 to rebuild the walkway and seawall after a storm, it conditioned the permit on the walkway being open to the public. That condition, the commission said, supersedes any historic private property claims by the HOA.
Rather than some long, drawn-out process, court documents show the sides foresee the trial to last a single day, with a judge to decide whether the Coastal Commission erred in its process when, in February of last year, it issued the fine and a cease-and-desist order against the HOA over the fence.
John Erskine, the HOA’s attorney with California-based firm Nossaman LLP, said the homeowners maintain that the Coastal Commission violated their due process.
“The trial is not focused on the walkway alone, it’s whether or not the enforcement proceeding and the cease-and-desist was properly done,” Erskine told Lookout on Wednesday.
Joshua Smith, spokesperson for the Coastal Commission, said the case was “obviously a big deal” and that the trial could happen this summer, or “drag out until winter.”
Meanwhile, as the sides work to set their trial date, a large section of Rio Del Mar Beach, just before the rowhomes, has turned into a construction site where, at first glance, it looks as if the tractors and excavators roaming the site are carving out a moat. In reality, the crews, according to the Coastal Commission and Erskine, are repairing the bouldered seawall that was damaged over the previous three winters.
According to the development permit issued by the Coastal Commission, the job required some deep digging to retrieve a few of the seawall’s dislodged boulders buried in the sand. The work will finish up in May — in accordance with all beach work stoppages between Memorial Day and Labor Day — and the beach will return to its normal, pre-repair contours.
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