Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill Wednesday that will open the exclusive beaches at Hollister Ranch to the public — the last remaining stretch of private-access beaches in the state. For more than four decades, wealthy Hollister Ranch homeowners fought tooth and nail to keep the beaches along the 8.5-mile coastline private, despite the State Legislature requiring them to provide wide public access in exchange for developing the ranch in 1982.
Assembly Bill 1680, written by Assemblymember Monique Limón, directs the California Coastal Commission, the Department of Parks and Recreation, the State Lands Commission, and the Coastal Conservancy to update the Hollister Ranch Public Access Program and truly enforce the law. Hollister Ranch is required to provide public pedestrian access to the beach by April 2022.
“This is a monumental victory for coastal access in California,” said Marce Gutiérrez-Graudiņš, executive director of Azul, an environmental justice ocean conservation group. “Forty years after the passage of the Coastal Act, we are now on the verge of ensuring all of California’s beaches are truly open to all.”