APTOS — A California appellate court docket has tossed out a pair of decrease court docket rulings and affirmed Santa Cruz County’s proper to designate a walkway alongside the seaside in Aptos for public utilization.
RELATED: Santa Cruz County householders hit with $4.7 million in fines, prop up fence amid seaside entry battles
In 39-page choice handed down Thursday by the state’s Sixth Appellate District, the justices acknowledged the county’s right-of-way easement and the general public’s curiosity in a 37-foot concrete walkway alongside the bottom of a row of properties subsequent to Seacliff State Seaside in Rio Del Mar. For years, the almost quarter milelong stretch of coastal land alongside Seaside Drive has been on the middle of a dispute between the county and 27 householders with items alongside the trail that declare the walkway as patio area.
Conversely, the county has argued that it’s a protected and accessible sidewalk for beachgoers and that the general public has a proper to put it to use as such.
The difficulty has wound its means via a number of rounds of court docket proceedings, together with a trial court docket ruling final 12 months declaring that the county had no title or curiosity within the walkway, together with a 2023 order that approved the householders to place up fencing on both finish of the walkway to cordon off public entry to the patios.
The opinion this week, nonetheless, said that the authorized reasoning that underpinned each rulings was unsound.
RELATED: How the case of a six-foot fence within the East Bay led to a victory for public-access advocates
“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 performing 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 authorized showdown, exhaustively summarized within the Thursday opinion, stretches again to December 2018 when the county demolished a fence, gate and masonry wall that partitioned the walkway on the coastal facet of the properties — most of that are trip leases — off from public sidewalks on both finish. Claiming that the newfound entry had made them susceptible to vandalism, invasion of privateness and security threats, the householders 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, truly, a public area and proper of means primarily based on planning paperwork and permits that stretched again to 1928, when the subdivision map of the world was recorded by the unique developer.
The county and the householders, often called the Rio Del Mar Seaside Island Owners Affiliation, continued their arguments and diverging interpretations of the almost century-old doc in addition to subsequent proof from the general public document pertaining to county agreements and permits from the Fifties and Eighties.
Then in 2022, a Santa Cruz County Superior Court docket choose dominated in favor of the householders, declaring that the county was fallacious to open up the patio area and had no public curiosity within the walkway.
The trial choice that sided with the householders and was finalized in February 2024 additionally saddled the county with stipulated damages of $3.7 million on the reason for motion for inverse condemnation, in line with the appellate court docket’s abstract.
The county then appealed the selections to the Sixth Appellate District and its six justices who heard the arguments additional, utilized their very own understanding of the regulation and located the county to be inside 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 an announcement. “These principles are worth fighting for, and the County is proud to have done so here.”
Ought to the householders select to enchantment this week’s ruling, the case would go earlier than the Supreme Court docket of California.
“We are discussing next steps with our clients, including appealing the decision,” a spokesperson for Nossaman LLP, the regulation agency representing the householders, instructed the Sentinel in a written assertion Friday.
Through the years of court docket proceedings between the county and householders, the difficulty additionally drew scrutiny from the California Coastal Fee, chartered with preserving the general public’s entry to the state’s shoreline. The fee began an inquiry of its personal that revolved round permits it issued to the householders within the Eighties that, amongst different issues, allowed them to assemble a protecting revetment on the beachside foot of the walkway to guard from heavy storms.
The fee mentioned these permits had been conditioned on preserving entry to the general public, however its reasoning was rejected by the householders who maintained their proper to the area. This dispute culminated in December 2023 with the fee unanimously agreeing to levy greater than $4.7 million in fines towards the householders — the best penalty issued by the company in county historical past.
County Supervisor Justin Cummings was a member of the fee on the time of the choice and strongly supported it.
“This is a huge win for public access in Santa Cruz County!!!” Cummings wrote on social media in response to Thursday’s ruling.
The Sixth Appellate District’s web site is at appellate.courts.ca.gov/district-courts/6dca. The case is No. H050433.
Initially Printed: September 29, 2025 at 5:31 AM PDT
