Court Opinion

ID: 9537520
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:19:34.371119+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:44.823178
License: Public Domain

CLARK, J., Dissenting.
Thousands of pleasure boats, freighters, docks, and harbor areas frame San Francisco Bay as testimonials to the wisdom of the Legislature in creating, and this court in upholding, a “public trust for commerce, navigation, fishing and related uses.” (Ante, p. 519.)
Principal trust purposes are promotion of commerce, navigation and fishing, and not maintenance and protection of tidelands as some would have us believe.
For over 100 years California citizens have progressively improved the bay edges, demonstrating their reliance on the legislative acts before us today as having conveyed trust-free title. Likewise, state and local governments and the public at large have acquiesced in and endorsed those activities, revealing they too recognize the law as authorizing trust-free conveyances. Given the contemporaneous and longstanding construction of the law by public authority, private individuals and our courts, it is presumptuous for the majority of this court to now tell us the Legislature never intended to permit such progress.
Persons lacking vision and understanding 130 years ago might have argued that trust purposes could not be furthered in the Bay Area by terminating the trust as to a substantial portion of the tidelands.
However, room for argument no longer exists. History has taught its lesson, and there is overwhelming proof that terminating the trust as to part of the tidelands and submerged lands furthered trust purposes by permitting public utilization of the bay. As early as 1854, this court *537upheld termination of the tideland trust to further trust purposes stating it was “so self-evident that it needs no argument to prove” that in the bay, some land had to be filled in order to build a port of sufficient depth for ships. (Eldridge v. Cowell (1854) 4 Cal. 80, 84.)
It is conceivable that even if the trust were not terminated, similar widespread utilization of the bay for trust purposes might have been achieved by private or government facilities. But such speculation is unnecessary. Termination of the trust as to large portions of tideland —affirmed by the court in Knudson v. Kearney (1915) 171 Cal. 250 [152 P. 541]—has resulted in numerous facilities permitting widespread public use of the bay’s resources.
Because the trust purposes have been fulfilled by termination of the trust—particularly through the Legislature’s policy encouraging dredging and filling tidelands for public and private harbors—it is unnecessary to guess whether those purposes would have been fulfilled had the trust not been terminated.
Recognizing the Legislature’s success in promoting trust purposes—a matter as obvious in 1915 to the justices who unanimously decided Knudson as it is today—I am satisfied that, as demonstrated below, proper application of trust principles requires reaffirmance of that decision.
It is well established that tidelands and submerged lands owned by the state are held in trust for the public purposes of navigation, commerce and fisheries. (City of Long Beach v. Mansell (1970) 3 Cal.3d 462, 482 [91 Cal.Rptr. 23, 476 P.2d 423]; People v. California Fish Co. (1913) 166 Cal. 576, 584 [138 P. 79].) Tidelands subject to the trust may not be alienated into absolute private ownership; an attempted conveyance of such land transfers “only bare legal title,” and the property remains subject to the public trust easement. (Id.) Cases have established that the trust is a limitation on governmental as well as private reclamation activities. (City of Long Beach v. Mansell, supra, 3 Cal.3d 462, 482-486; Atwood v. Hammond (1935) 4 Cal.2d 31, 38 [48 P.2d 20]; City of Oakland v. Williams (1929) 206 Cal. 315, 327-328, 330-331 [274 P. 328].) Additionally, oil and gas leases to tidelands and submerged lands have been approved on grounds there would be no serious impairment of trust purposes and that public policy warranted development of mineral resources lying beneath submerged lands. (Boone v. Kingsbury (1928) 206 Cal. 148, 192-194 [273 P. 797].)
*538Conversely, cases have indicated that reclamation for general purpose county and municipal buildings and governmental housing projects does not further trust purposes. (City of Long Beach v. Mansell, supra, 3 Cal.3d 462, 482; Atwood v. Hammond, supra, 4 Cal.2d 31, 37 et seq.; Alameda Conservation Assn. v. City of Alameda (1968) 264 Cal.App.2d 284, 286 [70 Cal.Rptr. 264].) The main effect of the rulings is that under the trust tidelands may be filled and used for commercial and recreational purposes but not residential purposes.
Apart from advancing trust purposes through reclamation, the “‘state in its proper administration of the trust may find it necessary or advisable to cut off certain tidelands from water access and render them useless for trust purposes. In such a case the state through the Legislature may find and determine that such lands are no longer useful for trust purposes and free them from the trust. When tidelands have been so freed from the trust—and if they are not subject to the constitutional prohibition forbidding alienation—they may be irrevocably conveyed into absolute private ownership.’ (City of Long Beach v. Mansell, supra, 3 Cal.3d 462, 482.)” (Italics added.) (Marks v. Whitney (1971) 6 Cal.3d 251, 260 [98 Cal.Rptr. 790, 491 P.2d 374]; see Mallon v. City of Long Beach (1955) 44 Cal.2d 199, 206 [282 P.2d 481].)
In the leading case of People v. California Fish Co., supra, 166 Cal. 576, the court recognized: “It is also settled that in the administration of this trust when the plan or system of improvement or development adopted by the state for the promotion of navigation and commerce cuts off a part of these tide lands or submerged lands from the public channels, so that they are no longer useful for navigation, the state may thereupon sell and dispose of such excluded lands into private ownership or private uses, thereby destroying the public easement in such portion of the lands and giving them over to the grantee, free from public control and use. On this subject in Illinois C. Ry. Co. v. Illinois, 146 U.S. 452 [36 L.Ed. 1018, 13 Sup.Ct.Rep. 118], the court said: ‘It is grants of parcels of lands under navigable waters, that may afford the foundation for wharves, piers, docks and other structures in aid of commerce, and grants of parcels which, being occupied, do not substantially impair the public interest in the lands and waters remaining, that are chiefly considered and sustained in the adjudged cases as a valid exercise of legislative power consistently with the trust to the public upon which such lands are held by the state.’ (Ward v. Mulford, 32 Cal. 372; Taylor v. Underhill, 40 Cal. 473; Kimball v. Macpherson, 46 Cal. 107, 108; Oakland v. Oakland W. F. Co., 118 Cal. 184 [50 Pac. 277]; People v. *539Kerber, 152 Cal. 733 [125 Am.St.Rep. 93, 93 Pac. 878]; Messenger v. Kingsbury, 158 Cal. 613, [112 Pac. 65].) The most striking instance of the exercise of this power of absolute disposition of such tide or submerged lands by the State of California is found in the laws providing for the improvement of the waterfront of San Francisco. By these laws the water-front line was fixed, cutting off from navigation a large area of land which was subject to the daily flux and reflux of the tides and part of the lands always under water, upon which line a sea-wall was constructed, and the area landward of this wall was subsequently surveyed into lots and streets, sold into private ownership and filled in for private use. This area now constitutes a large portion of the business section of San Francisco. The following cases recognize the authority of the state to make such absolute disposition of these particular lands: Eldridge v. Cowell, 4 Cal. 87; Guy v. Hermance, 5 Cal. 74 [63 Am. Dec. 85]; Hyman v. Read, 13 Cal. 444; Holladay v. Frisbie, 15 Cal. 634; Wheeler v. Miller, 16 Cal. 125; Seabury v. Arthur, 28 Cal. 142; People v. Klumpke, 41 Cal. 277; Knight v. Haight, 51 Cal. 171; Friedman v. Nelson, 53 Cal. 589; Le Roy v. Dunkerly, 54 Cal. 459; Knight v. Roche, 56 Cal. 21; People v. Williams, 64 Cal. 498 [2 P. 393]; San Francisco v. Straut, 84 Cal. 124 [24 Pac. 814].” (166 Cal. at pp. 585-586.)
The instant program was one of three instituted by the Legislature to convey tidelands and submerged lands. The first terminated the trust to establish part of the San Francisco, Oakland, and other city waterfronts on San Francisco Bay. (Eldridge v. Cowell, supra, 4 Cal. 80; Guy v. Hermance (1855) 5 Cal. 73; Oakland v. Oakland Water Front Co. (1897) 118 Cal. 160, 185, 201 [50 P. 277]; see Shirley v. City of Benicia (1897) 118 Cal. 344, 346 [50 P. 404].) Under this program, the Legislature adopted a series of so-called “special acts” delineating a permanent waterfront line, approving maps setting forth streets and blocks for tidelands and submerged lands located inshore of the line, authorizing sales of the lands, and confirming private titles held in the lands. (E.g., Stats. 1851, ch. 41, p. 307; Stats. 1853, ch. 160, p. 219; Stats. 1855, ch. 181, p. 226.) Purchasers filled the property conveyed and deepwater ports were ultimately established.
In the first of the cases holding that conveyances pursuant to the special acts were free of the tidelands trust, this court in 1854 recognized: “In the plan of the City of San Francisco, the survey into blocks, lots and streets, extended into the tide waters in front of the City, the object *540of which was to reach a sufficient depth of water, on the land line, for the convenience of shipping. It was necessarily anticipated that the water lots would be filled up to a level suitable for building or land carriage. That this was perfectly legitimate, in the establishment of a seaport town, is so self-evident that it needs no argument to prove it.” (Eldridge v. Cowell, supra, 4 Cal. 80, 87.) Our court held that because the state had statutorily “recognized” the city plan, the defendant who had purchased and filled his lot was free of the trust. (Id.)
The second program was one of general disposition, statewide in scope from the Oregon line to Mexico, excepting San Francisco Bay. The statutes did not establish waterfront lines or otherwise attempt to determine tideland or harbor development. Almost all of the tidelands encompassed were unsuitable for harbor development. In People v. California Fish Co., supra, 166 Cal. 576, we held that all tidelands and submerged lands conveyed pursuant to that program were subject to the trust because no enabling statute indicated a legislative intent to promote or regulate navigation, commerce, and fishing.
The third program involving the lands in the instant case was established by the acts of 30 March 1868 (Stats. 1867-1868, ch. 543, p. 716) and 1 April 1870 (Stats. 1869-1870, ch. 388, p. 541). By then the Legislature was obviously aware of (1) this court’s decisions holding the special acts terminated the trust and (2) the success of the special acts in furthering trust purposes. The 1868 and 1870 acts were intended to give the remainder of San Francisco and nearby communities the same opportunities to develop harbors, commerce, and fishing facilities as had been given to portions of San Francisco and Oakland by the special acts.
The 1868 act created the Board of Tideland Commissioners (BTLC), and empowered it to survey and sell at public auction certain salt marsh, tide and submerged lands within San Francisco. The act directed the BTLC to establish a* waterfront line and to reserve lands for “streets, docks, piers, slips, canals, drains or other use necessary for the public convenience in the purposes of commerce.”
The 1870 act “supplementary to and amendatory of” the 1868 act extended the BTLC’s jurisdiction to lands within five miles of San Francisco which were covered by less than nine feet of water at low *541tide. BTLC was directed to survey the land, sell lots, establish two 600-foot wide canals, and reserve canals and basins wherever they deemed necessary “for the purpose of drainage, navigation and the wants of commerce.” All lot subdivisions required approval by a state board composed of the Governor, the Surveyor-General, and the Controller. With respect to lands adjacent to the Berkeley area, BTLC divided about one-third into lots and reserved the remaining two-thirds to “navigation and the wants of commerce.”
It is estimated that while 88 square miles of the bay were under its jurisdiction, BTLC subdivided for sale approximately 36 square miles. It is also estimated that only 12 square miles have been filled and that about 6 square miles have been improved by homes, businesses and industries valued at over $2.5 billion. Included are substantial portions of San Francisco, Corte Madera, Richmond and other communities.1
Knudson held BTLC conveyances pursuant to the 1868 and 1870 acts, like conveyances pursuant to the “special acts,” are trust-free conveyances. Relying upon Knudson, several subsequent cases have reaffirmed that conveyances pursuant to the 1868 and 1870 acts are free of the trust. (Marks v. Whitney, supra, 6 Cal.3d 251, 258, fn. 6; City of Long Beach v. Mansell, supra, 3 Cal.3d 462, 485, fn. 20; Alameda Conservation Assn. v. City of Alameda, supra, 264 Cal.App.2d 284, 287.)
Claiming Knudson is contrary to California Fish, and is based on a mischaracterization of the 1868 and 1870 acts, petitioners urge us to repudiate Knudson. We should reject the invitation.
In Knudson, plaintiff sued to quiet title to a two-acre parcel of tideland, arguing his occupancy conferred a title superior to that of defendant, who held title under the 1868 and 1870 acts. Plaintiff argued under California Fish that defendant’s title was subject to the public trust and title by possession prevailed over such a limited private title. The holding in California Fish was distinguished because it in*542volved grants made under the general disposition program, which was not enacted in furtherance of trust purposes. In contrast, the court asserted it was “obvious” the 1868 and 1870 acts were enacted in aid of navigation. In support of this position, the court pointed out the acts provided for improving San Francisco Bay “so as to make it more suitable for navigation” by delineating the boundaries of navigable waters and fixing the waterfront line with the BTLC empowered to determine what land was required for “streets, docks, piers, slips, canals, drains or other uses necessary for public convenience,” the surplus to be sold to the public in absolute fee. (171 Cal. at p. 251.)
The Knudson court correctly construed the 1868 and 1870 acts as providing for conveyances free of the trust. As a general rule, the legislative determination that land shall be severed from the public trust “is conclusive upon this court in the absence of evidence indicating that the abandonment of the public trust will impair the power of succeeding legislatures to protect, improve, and develop the public interest in commerce, navigation, and fisheries.” (Mallon v. City of Long Beach (1955) 44 Cal.2d 199, 207 [282 P.2d 481]; County of Orange v. Heim (1973) 30 Cal.App.3d 694, 717 [106 Cal.Rptr. 825].)
The Knudson court reasonably interpreted the 1868 act as demonstrating a legislative intent to further the public interest in commerce, navigation and fishing. It is evident the Legislature exhibited concern for the public trust when it adopted that plan to fix the boundaries of navigable waters, delineate the waterfront line and sell for private use land that BTLC determined was not required for docks, piers, slips or other purposes of navigation. Given the detail of the 1868 act with respect to the BTLC’s duties in planning the harbor area, it follows, as the Knudson court concluded, the acts “were enacted in aid of navigation and for the purpose of providing improvement of San Francisco Bay, so as to make it more suitable for navigation.” (171 Cal. at p. 253.)
The 1870 act was expressly enacted “supplementary to and amendatory of” the 1868 act and, as such, was promulgated with the same concern toward trust purposes reflected in the earlier act. For this reason, I must reject the majority’s reliance on some minor differences between the acts as a basis for distinguishing them.2
*543Three additional factors fortify the conclusion that conveyances by the BTLC pursuant to the 1868 and 1870 acts were free of the trust. The historical context demonstrates the success of the “special acts” in establishing harbor facilities through the combined use of public and private capital. The 1868 and 1870 acts were obviously patterned after the earlier “special acts.” The difference is that in the earlier “special acts” the Legislature itself fixed the waterfront lines and provided for retention of property for navigation, commercial, and fishing purposes. Under the 1868 and 1870 acts, the Legislature delegated to the BTLC the duty to fix the waterfront line and to determine which properties were useful and to be retained for trust purposes. (As to the 79 acres involved in the present case, the parallel to the San Francisco waterfront is complete. Like the San Francisco piers, the Berkeley marina is on the bayward side of the conveyed and filled property.)
Secondly, the claim of conflict between California Fish, the main case relied upon by petitioners, and Knudson must be considered in light of the fact that both opinions were authored by Justice Shaw, that Knudson was decided 21 months after California Fish, and that six of the seven justices participating in California Fish participated in the unanimous determination in Knudson. The 66 pages of majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions in California Fish and companion cases by three justices demonstrate their scholarly knowledge of the trust doctrine, and I must reject the claim that our court in Knudson was not fully aware of the doctrine. Far from indicating a lack of understanding of the issue, the brevity of the Knudson opinion indicates that the able justices believed determination of the issue simple and clear.
Thirdly, the Knudson court was certainly aware that in the 45 years between adoption of the legislation and its decision, thousands of private parties were openly and notoriously dredging, filling, improving, and using tidelands indicating their understanding the legislation permitted these activities. The legislative, executive, and local governments, by acquiescing and encouraging these activities, reflected the same construction of the legislation. Today’s remarkable rejection of such contemporaneous and longstanding construction presents ominous possibilities for future use of this rule of construction. (Cf. In re Waters of Long Valley Creek Stream System (1979) 25 Cal.3d 339, 349, fn. 4 [158 Cal.Rptr. 350, 599 P.2d 656]; Rivera v. City of Fresno (1971) 6 Cal.3d 132, 140 [98 Cal.Rptr. 281, 490 P.2d 793]; Coca Cola Co. v. State Bd. of Equalization (1945) 25 Cal.2d 918, 921-923 [156 P.2d 1]; Whitcomb Hotel, Inc. v. California Employment Comm. *544(1944) 24 Cal.2d 753, 756-758 [151 P.2d 233, 155 A.L.R. 405]; Worthington v. Unemployment Insurance Appeals Bd. (1976) 64 Cal.App.3d 384, 389 [134 Cal.Rptr. 507].)
The majority assert that the acts impair the power of succeeding legislatures to protect, improve, and develop the public interest in commerce, navigation, and fisheries. There is, however, no showing to this effect. The numerous public-private developments throughout the bay tell us the contrary—emphasizing the wisdom of the legislative plan to permit private and public bay development. Specifically, the 1868 and 1870 acts did not prevent the City of Berkeley from developing its marina on the bayward side of property conveyed by the Tideland Commissioners to defendants’ predecessors.
Arguing that the Legislature never intended to terminate the trust by the 1868 and 1870 acts, the majority rely primarily on a report of the Attorney General. (Appen. to Sen. and Assem. J., vol. 2, 17th Sess. 1868.) That report briefly discussed how the state’s title in the tidelands at issue would “vest... in others through the action of the [Board of Tideland] Commissioners.” (Id., at p. 6.) Reliance is placed on the following language: “The State, in making this disposition of those lands, passes the title with the same disability which obtains with the State. Her purchaser can acquire from the Státe no such title as will enable the owner or holder of them to use them to the detriment, destruction or prejudice of commerce or navigation. For such uses the public have an easement, and the Government retáins and has the authority to enforce the right.” (Id.; italics added.)
The Attorney General’s statement fails to establish legislative intent to continue the tideland trust as to lands conveyed pursuant to the acts. By noting the “Government” retains the right to enforce an easement, the Attorney General was referring to the United States government, not the state government. Earlier in the Attorney General’s report, and in several places in a second opinion submitted to the Assembly Committee, the United States government is referred to as the “Federal Government” or the “General Government.” Nowhere in either report is the State of California called the “Government”; rather, both the Attorney General and Senator Creed Haymond, author of the second report, consistently speak of California as “the State” or the “State of California.”
*545Thus, it appears the Attorney General was reiterating the established rule of law that although the state has absolute power to convey land underlying navigable water, state transfer does not terminate the federal right to regulate obstruction to navigation. (Colberg Inc. v. State of California ex rel. Department of Public Works (1967) 67 Cal.2d 408, 416 [62 Cal.Rptr. 401, 432 P.2d 3].) He was not advising the Legislature that the state was retaining an easement in the tidelands at issue. Senator Creed Haymond’s report supports such interpretation of the legislative intent. He advised the Assembly Committee: “[I]t follows that the State of California is the owner of the shores and soils under the navigable waters within her limits; that she holds the same by virtue of her state sovereignty, with full power to alienate them, subject only to the right of conservation resting in the General Government.” (Report Assem. Special Com. in Relation to S. F. Tide Lands, p. 8, Appen. to Sen. and Assem. J., vol. 2,. 17th Sess. 1868.)
It has been suggested both acts reveal little public purpose beyond raising revenue for the state and that the 1870 act disposed of public land preserving only minimal navigational access. (See Comment (1972) 60 Cal.L.Rev. 225, 251-252.) However, there is little support for such an interpretation. In the report discussed above, references to revenue from land sales were not made with respect to a sole purpose of land disposition; rather, the report concluded the revenue was a collateral, albeit appreciated, benefit of the enactments.3
It is urged that even if conveyances pursuant to the 1868 and 1870 acts passed trust-free title, grantees and their successors were required to reclaim their land within a reasonable time or suffer reinstatement of the trust. Nothing in the deed or statute warrants implication of such a condition subsequent. Moreover, conditions subsequent are disfavored because they may result in forfeiture. (MacDonald Properties, Inc. v. *546Bel-Air Country Club (1977) 72 Cal.App.3d 693, 699 [140 Cal.Rptr. 367].) The condition subsequent would cause manifest injustice to those who—relying on Knudson—filled land and built upon it, and those who paid real property taxes over the past 100 years.
The principle case relied on by the majority to establish the condition subsequent theory (People v. Williams (1884) 64 Cal. 498 [2 P. 393]) holds merely that an offer to dedicate land for construction of specified improvements is not effective to create a public easement until the offer has been accepted and the improvements made. This and other cases cited by the majority furnish no basis for concluding all grants of tidelands are necessarily subject to conditions subsequent.
Conclusion
We should reaffirm the holding that conveyances pursuant to the 1868 and 1870 acts passed title free from the trust. This does not suggest that owners of submerged lands may reclaim their property free from pertinent federal, state and local regulation. Tidelands—whether free or subject to the trust—remain subject to regulation as to whether they may be filled (Gov. Code, § 66600 et seq.; People ex rel. S. F. Bay etc. Com. v. Town of Emeryville (1968) 69 Cal.2d 533, 544 [72 Cal.Rptr. 790, 446 P. 2d 790]; Candlestick Properties, Inc. v. San Francisco Bay Conservation etc. Com. (1970) 11 Cal.App.3d 557, 570-573 [89 Cal.Rptr. 897]), and while the lands remain submerged or become flooded by navigable waters, they are subject to the public’s right to fish and pass over them. (Bohn v. Albertson (1951) 107 Cal.App.2d 738, 748 et seq. [238 P.2d 128].)4
Rather than condemning the Legislature’s fundamental policy encouraging private parties to dredge and fill tidelands to permit public and private harbor development, we should recognize the determination greatly furthered the purposes of the trust. The bay has been developed permitting widespread public access according to long settled rules. We should not now attempt to impeach those rules, the legislative determi*547nation establishing them, or this court’s affirmance of them. We should embrace our heritage and be thankful for it.
Public policy as to development of San Francisco Bay may have changed as the majority suggest, but this furnishes no basis for impeaching the legislative determinations of 1868 and 1870 to terminate the trust as to portions of the tidelands and submerged lands in furtherance of trust purposes. The program has been too successful to be condemned by judicial fiat, and the need to promote commerce and harbor development is as great now as ever.
Moreover, it is for the Legislature and not this court to determine policy. The Legislature has made it clear that “private investment in shoreline development should be vigorously encouraged” in San Francisco Bay. (Gov. Code, § 66605.1.)5
Mandate should be denied.
Richardson, J., and Manuel, J., concurred.
The petition of real parties in interest for a rehearing was denied March 27, 1980, and the opinion was modified to read as printed above. Clark, J., Richardson, J., and Manuel J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

Lands sold by the BTLC appear to include: Parts of the Marina District in San Francisco; lands extending south from Second Street in San Francisco to San Francisco Airport; Marin County from Sausalito north to Hamilton Air Force Base, including parts of downtown Corte Madera and San Rafael; the East Bay from Oakland north to San Pablo and from Oakland south to San Leandro, including portions of Richmond and Emeryville, among other cities.

Although the majority purport in places to separate the 1868 and 1870 acts, in other places they are grouped. For example, the Attorney General’s opinion relied upon related to the 1868 act but is used to construe the 1870 act.

After a lengthy discussion of the navigational purposes of the tideland trust, the state’s power to terminate the trust, and the nature of a private owner’s possession of such land after sale, Senator Raymond ended his report with a brief statement concerning revenue: “If rumor is to be credited, these lands' have been a fruitful source of corruption and have been made the foundation of gigantic lobby schemes—the State has been despoiled of her interest in valuable portions of them, and the time has. arrived that an end should be put to schemes that grow out of their retention by the State. Whilst the Legislature has the power to give them away lot by lot to private parties, it has not the moral right to so dispose of them. Our State is burdened with a debt of five millions of dollars and the people are weighed down by taxation. [¶] If these lands are sold under the provisions of the Parish bill, the State will receive into her Treasury more than a million of dollars.” (Report, supra, at p. 10.)

My conclusion that we should adhere to Knudson requires denial of mandate, and it is unnecessary to reach the alternate ground relied upon by the trial court in granting the motion for partial .summary judgment. Although the parties had not raised the matter, the trial court concluded that the state was collaterally estopped to claim that conveyances pursuant to the 1868 and 1870 acts were not free of the trust. The court relied upon Alameda Conservation Assn. v. City of Alameda, supra, 264 Cal.App.2d 284, 287, where the state successfully took the position that Knudson should be followed and such conveyances were free of the trust.

Government Code section 66605.1 provides: “The Legislature finds that in order to make San Francisco Bay more accessible for the use and enjoyment of people, the bay shoreline should be improved, developed and preserved. The Legislature further recognizes that private investment in shoreline development should be vigorously encouraged and may be one of the principal means of achieving bay shoreline development, minimizing the resort to taxpayer funds; therefore, the Legislature declares that the commission should encourage both public and private development of the bay shoreline.”
Section 66606 provides: “The Legislature hereby finds and declares that this title is not intended, and shall not be construed, as authorizing the commission to exercise its power to grant or deny a permit in a manner which will take or damage private property for public use, without the payment of just compensation therefor. This section is not intended to increase or decrease the rights of any owner of property under the Constitution of the State of California or the United States.”