SEACLIFF — A long-standing fence that has blocked pedestrian traffic from a stretch of Beach Road in the Seacliff area of Santa Cruz County for decades has now been opened to the public.

On Tuesday, a crew from Santa Cruz County Parks showed up with hammers, crowbars, chainsaws and a dump truck to break down and haul away a stretch of fence to ultimately open the length of pathway.

The California Coastal Act of 1976 forbids blocking access to the state’s beaches.

The move was likely not the final chapter in the saga.

In November, the Rio Del Mar Beach Island Homeowners Association filed a lawsuit claiming that there is no public easement that allows access to the beach via the Esplanade.

Santa Cruz County Supervisor Zach Friend questioned why the homeowners have not been paying taxes on the property during the past decades if they believe it is privately owned.

“We’ve have made it clear that this is a public access point,” Friend said. “The main things blocking public access are the wall and the fence and we are fully committed to reopening this to public access.” 

Bob Johnson said he is a surfer and a regular visitor to Rio Del Mar State Beach.

“I’ve always been a big advocate of open public beach access,” he said. “Look, I’ve been coming to this beach for years and never knew this was open to the public. The idea of opening this up to the public is the right thing to do.”

The situation in Rio Del Mar mirrors the story of Martin’s Beach in Half Moon Bay.

There, venture capitalist billionaire Vinod Khalsa bought an 89-acre strip of land that allows access to the beach, and chained up a pathway that had been used by the public for years. After Kholsa’s efforts to refuse access were repeatedly rebuffed by lower courts, he took it to the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to challenge the constitutionality of the Coastal Act.

But the nation’s highest court refused to take the case, which essentially upheld lower court rulings that blocking access was illegal.

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