After almost four years of litigation, California’s coastal land-use regulators have allowed a Malibu couple to put up a sign delineating their private beachfront property from the public beach near the waterline.
The state’s Coastal Commission agreed to allow Dennis and Leah Seider to put up a single 18-inch by 24-inch metal sign on the ocean side of their residence. The panel’s decision came years after the Seiders filed a federal lawsuit that ultimately led to settlement talks between the commission and the plaintiffs.
Initially, the commission designated an earlier “Private Beach” sign placed on the couple’s property as an “unpermitted development” in a coastal zone, according to the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented the couple. The city of Malibu, meanwhile, told the couple that its Local Implementation Plan prohibited any signs that designate a boundary between public and private property.
A tentative settlement between the parties was reported in a legal status report filed in March. Commission members later agreed that the Seiders could post a sign that states, “Public access extends 25 ft. landward of the mean high tide line; no public access allowed on the private property from there to the house.”
An attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) said the Seiders’ free speech arguments helped to resolve the case.
“We're thrilled about the outcome for our clients, who can now post a truthful sign describing their private property along the beach,” attorney Chris Keiser said in an email to the Southern California Record. “We hope it will lead to more permits being issued for truthful signs in Malibu in the future.”
Dennis Seider, a retired attorney who practiced maritime law, was not looking to restrict public access to public beach areas – only to protect their private property. Often, beachgoers assume that all the land behind the Seiders’ home is open to the public, according to the foundation.
“A growing number of people now walk across and even hang out on the Seiders’ private property, often disputing that their beach is private,” the foundation said in a website post, adding that the problem became worse when many public beaches closed during the Covid pandemic.
The foundation indicated that the purpose of the federal lawsuit, which was filed in the Central District of California, was to establish that homeowners have a right to tell beachgoers where their property begins and ends – and that the Coastal Commission must allow property owners a reasonable ability to enforce this right.
The PLF has also criticized regulations that might have placed the Seiders on the hook for future legal fees had they applied and obtained a city sign permit. If environmental groups had filed a legal challenge to the government’s action, the Seiders could have been billed for the legal costs, according to the foundation.
“Government can’t chill free speech by forcing people seeking a permit to pay a city’s legal fees should anyone challenge the permit grant,” the PLF said.
During the course of the federal litigation, the Seiders initially sued only the city of Malibu, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the Coastal Commission had original jurisdiction over permitting. An amended complaint was later filed to include commission defendants.