LOS ANGELES – The owners of Hollister Ranch in Santa Barbara County filed a federal lawsuit Jan. 16 challenging provisions of a new law, Assembly Bill 1680, that gives state officials the right to search private coastal property without permission or warrant. This case is another in a long-running battle in California about the right to beach access for the public.
Gov. Gavin Newsom last October signed a bill that amended The California Coastal Act of 1976, requiring a public access plan to be developed by April of next year for the beaches along Hollister Ranch. The Ranch itself must be accessible to the public and state officials by April 2022.
"The law itself gives state officials a blank check to go into the gated ranch when they want, how they want – and that’s a problem for a private community that does value its privacy,” David Breemer, a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, said.
The Pacific Legal Foundation is representing the Hollister Ranch Owners’ Association and its 133 members.
The Hollister Ranch Owners' Association alleges that many of the provisions are an abuse of the state's authority and a breach on homeowners' privacy.
“The California Coastal Commission has spent decades trying to turn private ranch lands into a public area without adequately respecting the private rights of those who live there, or its special and historical character as an area preserved from public damage and set aside for ranching,” Breemer said in a press release. “There is a right way and wrong way to deal with access issues. Requiring property owners to submit to searches of property without notice or limits and threatening them with fines for speaking out or acting in other lawful ways to defend their private property is the wrong way. If California uses these overreaching means at Hollister Ranch in pursuit of its access goals, no one’s property is safe.”