APTOS — A California appellate court has tossed out a pair of lower court rulings and affirmed Santa Cruz County’s right to designate a walkway along the beach in Aptos for public usage.
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In 39-page decision handed down Thursday by the state’s Sixth Appellate District, the justices recognized the county’s right-of-way easement and the public’s interest in a 37-foot concrete walkway along the backside of a row of homes next to Seacliff State Beach in Rio Del Mar. For years, the nearly quarter milelong stretch of coastal land along Beach Drive has been at the center of a dispute between the county and 27 homeowners with units along the path that claim the walkway as patio space.
Conversely, the county has argued that it is a safe and accessible sidewalk for beachgoers and that the public has a right to utilize it as such.
The issue has wound its way through several rounds of court proceedings, including a trial court ruling last year declaring that the county had no title or interest in the walkway, along with a 2023 order that authorized the homeowners to put up fencing on either end of the walkway to cordon off public access to the patios.
The opinion this week, however, stated that the legal reasoning that underpinned both rulings was unsound.
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“Since the trial court’s rulings that were encompassed in the February 24, 2024 judgment are based upon an erroneous ruling on the threshold issue of the County’s interest in the 37-foot walk, we reverse the judgment in its entirety,” reads the opinion, authored by acting Presiding Justice Allison Danner with concurrences from Justices Charles Wilson and Daniel Bromberg. “We also vacate the December 26, 2023 order granting a permanent injunction, since that order is also based upon the trial court’s erroneous ruling that the County does not have a public interest in the 37-foot walk.”
The legal showdown, exhaustively summarized in the Thursday opinion, stretches back to December 2018 when the county demolished a fence, gate and masonry wall that partitioned the walkway on the coastal side of the homes — most of which are vacation rentals — off from public sidewalks on either end. Claiming that the newfound access had made them vulnerable to vandalism, invasion of privacy and safety threats, the homeowners sued the county and contended that the walkway was rightfully theirs and had been for years.
The county, in a counter lawsuit, argued that the walkway was, actually, a public space and right of way based on planning documents and permits that stretched back to 1928, when the subdivision map of the area was recorded by the original developer.
The county and the homeowners, known as the Rio Del Mar Beach Island Homeowners Association, continued their arguments and diverging interpretations of the nearly century-old document as well as subsequent evidence from the public record pertaining to county agreements and permits from the 1950s and 1980s.
Then in 2022, a Santa Cruz County Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the homeowners, declaring that the county was wrong to open up the patio space and had no public interest in the walkway.
The trial decision that sided with the homeowners and was finalized in February 2024 also saddled the county with stipulated damages of $3.7 million on the cause of action for inverse condemnation, according to the appellate court’s summary.
The county then appealed the decisions to the Sixth Appellate District and its six justices who heard the arguments further, applied their own understanding of the law and found the county to be within its rights.
“The Court’s well-reasoned decision properly recognizes that the public has a legal right to use this ocean-front walkway. We are grateful to the Coastal Commission and other community partners who stood by us to protect this coastal access for all County residents to enjoy,” county spokesperson Jason Hoppin wrote in a statement. “These principles are worth fighting for, and the County is proud to have done so here.”
Should the homeowners choose to appeal this week’s ruling, the case would go before the Supreme Court of California.
“We are discussing next steps with our clients, including appealing the decision,” a spokesperson for Nossaman LLP, the law firm representing the homeowners, told the Sentinel in a written statement Friday.
During the years of court proceedings between the county and homeowners, the issue also drew scrutiny from the California Coastal Commission, chartered with preserving the public’s access to the state’s coastline. The commission started an inquiry of its own that revolved around permits it issued to the homeowners in the 1980s that, among other things, allowed them to construct a protective revetment at the beachside foot of the walkway to protect from heavy storms.
The commission said those permits were conditioned on preserving access to the public, but its reasoning was rejected by the homeowners who maintained their right to the space. This dispute culminated in December 2023 with the commission unanimously agreeing to levy more than $4.7 million in fines against the homeowners — the highest penalty issued by the agency in county history.
County Supervisor Justin Cummings was a member of the commission at the time of the decision and strongly supported it.
“This is a huge win for public access in Santa Cruz County!!!” Cummings wrote on social media in reaction to Thursday’s ruling.
The Sixth Appellate District’s website is at appellate.courts.ca.gov/district-courts/6dca. The case is No. H050433.
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