04 March 2024 , 20:24
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Furious homeowners who have been fined more than £4million ($5m) by authorities for closing off a public pathway to the beach by putting up a massive chain-link fence.
The annoyed residents received fines after erecting an illegal barrier, which was blocking the public walkway, near their homes in the Bay Area of California. It was installed by the Rio Del Mar Beach Island Homeowners Association (HOA) in Aptos, which is a wealthy community around 40 miles south of San Jose.
The new fence prevents access to a 25-foot wide pathway behind the homeowners multi-million-pound properties which are found on a quarter-mile stretch of beach. The HOA has filed suit against the government agency in charge of protecting access to beaches after claiming the walkway is private property and they are well within their rights to install barriers.
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The community has put up metal barrier blocks in protest (KSBW 8)Some of the homes were recently advertised on a property agent site for as much as £12million for a five-bedroom property, while some are a bit less expensive and cost around £8million, the NY Post reports.
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One homeowner who is annoyed with the saga said: "I don’t think people need to be walking behind people’s private property. I don’t prefer walking on the sand — that’s not my cup of tea. Yes, the sidewalks are sketchy in front of the houses. I don’t know about wheelchair access; I’ve not tried to put a wheelchair on there. My opinion is, I think for them, it’s a privacy issue."
"For people to just come up off of the public beach and walk along that little small strip behind those houses and peer into their houses, for me, is completely unnecessary."
The barriers are preventing any access to the beach walkway (KSBW 8)Join the Mirror's SMS news service to get the biggest breaking stories delivered straight to your phone. Click here to subscribe.
It's not the first time people who own the properties have tried to block access to the walkway. And it's not the first time officials from Santa Cruz has stepped in to take them down. Rio Del Mar supervisor Zach Friend said: “Whether it’s trash cans blocking the sidewalk in front of the Beach Drive homes or newly erected fences blocking the coastal walkway, it sure seems like a lot of time, effort and money is being spent to prevent any sort of safe, public access to the area."
The HOA filed a lawsuit against the California Coastal Commission accusing the agency of having “applied their administrative enforcement authority in direct contravention” of a 2022 ruling by a Superior Court judge who ruled that “no public easement across the privately constructed and fully permitted patios on Beach Island exists.”