Access to public lands

I've been a proponent of access to public lands that have been shut off due to private land blocking unfettered access. This varies a lot from state to state. In Montana we've fought long and hard for landowners unethically and illegally restricting access to public lands. We've had some decent success regarding this.

Most people take the position that while a landowner's rights should be held in high esteem, a landowner does not have an absolute right to their land. Some landowners take the position that they have an absolute say who gets to be on their land. Few things in life are absolute, though. After all, the public has rights to use public land. Whose rights are more important? What is fair?

Landowners have a lot of money and influence in the courts, but when enough people speak up, justice sometimes prevails, and a more balanced exercise of rights is hashed out. In some circumstances the courts have ruled that a landowner must allow access to public lands that have previously been blocked by private land.

This allows more vandwellers, campers, hunters, etc. access to our beautiful lands. By being aware of situations like this, we can make more informed choices and get involved. Then all people who enjoy being in the outdoors can partake, not just private landowners who happen to own land in front of vast tracts of public land.

I appreciate this thread. Being a land surveyor in Ga. and Fla. for 25 years or so, not registered, I know you can not sell land without deeded access to it, or can't block access to neighbor properties in those states. That is concerning private land, I am curious about access issues to public land. This should be very informative to those of us looking for property in the western states, me included. Let's see where this goes. Thanks, Duane

So they can just cut a populated road thru the front yard you paid for?

This has been an ongoing fight along Jersey shore for years. Private property blocking access to public beaches. Most court cases settled with forced pathways to public areas. They are still fighting over port-a-johns for the public.

@ Dazar- As far as private land in Fl. and Ga. You can't legally sell land w/o providing a legal easement, surveyed and plated/ recorded at local courthouse, to the land you'r selling. It may be through the land (usually a road or decent place to build one) or along 1 side. That applies to private land. I am curious about public land.

Dazar, there are a lot of factors to consider and what context. If you purchase land that borders a mile of National Forest and on that National Forest a town previously existed that previous county road ran across your land leading to the town and there is private land 50 miles on either side of you that never had any county roads and none of the landowners allowed access, then you likely would have to allow people easement to the National Forest that is blocked by your land.

Public land is owned by the public. Just like private landowners can't buy land and block another private landowner's land, public land can't always be blocked off. Like I said, landowners rights are held in high esteem and it takes a compelling argument for the courts to grant public access against a landowner's wishes.

In this case driving around the private land to get to the spot directly behind your land would be a hardship, so granting access on the public land would be reasonable. Unless you are the landowner. Some landowners want it all and would find it unreasonable. Few can afford helicopters to fly in and sometimes those are forbidden, but I've seen, if you have enough money, you can legally (cough, cough) set up a landing pad in a Wilderness area.

If that land you own is 5 miles from a major, well-establish public road, (unless some weird, extenuating circumstance presented itself) you would have every right to deny access to your land.

So if there is other access to that land, then they can't? Or can they because its more convenient.

Dazar, could you clarify "they"? I want to make sure I answer you correctly.

Whoever is gonna demand use of the private property to get to the public land. I think if it was the only way in, it might be reasonable, but if it just a more convenient way than say, another entrance and the state making roads to a certain part of their land, near yours then i dont think that should be ok.

Dazar, let me throw something a little different at you. Convenience/hardship is a factor. But what about Corner Crossing? Land is often plotted in grids like a checkerboard. Let's say the black squares are private land and the red ones public. One could walk around to access the red squares in the back with little inconvenience. The convenience factor is not much of an issue in this case.

By walking straight to the back, what harm is done? Nothing physically- not even one blade of grass is disturbed. Despite not physically touching private property, one has to technically trespass private land by breaking the boundary above the ground. Planes fly over and "trespass" private property. How high does one need to be to not be trespassing? 1000 feet? 2 feet? Would a hang-glider be a trespasser? Would a pole-vaulter be able to be far enough above the land to satisfy most land owners?

The red squares in the middle are accessible only by crossing over private land. Many, many landowners will strategically purchase land and/or have land plotted to block access to public land. (Not unlike Gerrymandering.) Corner Crossing is not an issue of harm or convenience; it is primarily an issue of entitlement.

There are specific examples of landowners illegally blocking access, but most examples are grey. Sometimes finding a balance that is fair can be challenging. Private land ownership should be held in high regard as well as public land. I hope those of us boondocking (hunting, etc.) become more aware of this and hopefully make the effort to find a more balanced approach to public/private land use.

"Some landowners take the position that they have an absolute say who gets to be on their land. "

Well duh .. its their land. If I own land you better believe I will say who can be on my land and who cannot. If there is deeded access/easement through my land and I block it then yes that's wrong. If there are no deeded access/easements and I don't want people on my land then that's my right.

Courts that come along after I own my land and force me to allow easement can kiss my rear and will meet force

vagair, unfortunately, there are some people who think they have an absolute right to land ownership. The law has shown time and time again that landowners do not have absolute rights to their land. On the other hand people don't have absolute access to public land- it is often severely restricted to protect the rights of landowners, and justifiably so.

Some people say, "That public land is mine. I paid for it and I own it. Anyone who says I can't access public land using this easement that crosses private land will be met with force." I know of one instance where that was the case. Shots were exchanged. One person died and one person was arrested. The final outcome of that situation is pending. It is a shame that some landowners feel the need to use deadly force to prevent legal, reasonable access to public lands. I'm not saying you would use lethal force. I'm saying that some people have and would.

This is the world we live in. People who want to legally access public land sometimes need to deal with people who unethically and illegally defy court orders with tremendous amounts of force. However, if there is a less confrontational way to accommodate the rights of both sides, I welcome that. That's the primary reason I started this thread- to create an awareness of the situation as it applies to many of us to mitigate possible confrontation.

Towns and cities can take private land they need. I am surprised that state and federal agencies cannot do so also to provide an easement.

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Vagari: my land, courts, meet with force

Me: What charming delusions! Throughout human history, land has belonged to those who could take it and hold it. The society you are in and the governments and courts that represent it determine exactly what rights you do and do not have. Maybe you like it and maybe you don't. If you choose to pick a fight over it with the wrong people, they will very forcefully put you in your place, and possibly confiscate it and lock you up.

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Vagari: my land, courts, meet with force

Me: What charming delusions! Throughout human history, land has belonged to those who could take it and hold it. The society you are in and the governments and courts that represent it determine exactly what rights you do and do not have. Maybe you like it and maybe you don't. If you choose to pick a fight over it with the wrong people, they will very forcefully put you in your place, and possibly confiscate it and lock you up.

well I find that it is the government keeping me off the public lands more than private property owners. I have never been denied access across private property but I always ask with respect before trespassing. while this works 99% of the time on private property it hardly ever works if you are asking the government to access our own public domain. highdesertranger

I might own my land & have NO hunting & NO trespassing signs posted the Game warden will let hunters , trespass, if they claim to have a dog on my property.
I put some fertilizer on my Field, DEQ was all over me---checking my wells & the creek 800 ft away, to see if it washed in the creek. which it didn't.
the power co has access to my field & back yd, which is fine with me---they have always treated me fine.

I poked around in Eastern WA hard enough on forest roads to find some funny things on my Motor Vehicle Use Maps. Twice I found some roads ending juuuuuust next to each other. Like surely, those roads were touching at one time. Maybe the map is wrong, they're still touching now? So I drive through this crazy network of back-winding roads, like some mitochondria fold from high school science class, to get to this juncture of almost teeny touching roads. Dang, it's blocked by a very small stretch of private land, it's for real. I don't know what powers that be decided to separate these roads and make 2 nearby road networks completely inaccessible to each other. But the effect is, I have to backtrack many many miles through the woods and go out the way I came in. The distances are severe enough that one can run out of gas doing that. I didn't, but after 2 such experiences I made very clear to remember that in the future, if the map doesn't show you can get through, THEY MEAN IT. You'd better be prepared to go back out the way you came in, and you'd better have the gas.

There was also a gated stretch of road that was for LEOs and other public officials only. I'm stopped in front of this gate, wondering if it's for real. Looking to see if there's any obvious way to open it. I'm familiar with private timber gates, I know that not every gate is something I can go into. But on my map this gate connects one huge forest network with this other town elsewhere, this is the only way to go, and it's deliberately blocked off. As I'm contemplating, a LEO pulls up, about to go through the gate. I ask him about it, he says it's exactly like I thought. LEOs, public officials only. The govt set this up deliberately, something to do with watersheds, fishing rights, sewer treatment plants, power lines, controlling public access, whatever. You can get to where you want to be in the forest, but you will be taking the looooooooooong way round, not this shortcut.

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vagari said:

Courts that come along after I own my land and force me to allow easement can kiss my rear and will meet force

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I'm not thrilled about such hard line notions of land ownership and control. Land ownership in this society generally means, I have lots of money. For some reason I think I've got all this money by some kind of right, like I earned every penny of it. That is often not true, especially if one made the money by organizing the labor of others and didn't pay them very well for it. Also a lot of infrastructure exists that was put there with taxpayer funds, that we tend to take for granted. Having large amounts of wealth is actually very much a privilege, obtained by social constructs in our economy, often at a lot of other people's expense. Everyone working a full time job is working the same number of hours, why are some people's labors regarded as massively more valuable than another's? Why do some people make barely enough to get by, to the point that they will never be able to afford land anywhere?

So, landowners have the gold and follow the Golden Rule. That is, they make the rules. They tend to allocate the vast majority of land for their own private purposes and leave very little of it left over for the public. Consider the ownership ratios in the urban fabric, for instance, how much of it is typically private vs. public space. And what little is public space, the adjacent private landowners can be awfully territorial about. Sure it's a public street with a public parking space but it's in front of MY house. So I'm calling the cops who are now going to hassle you. The landowners pay property taxes to fund police forces that enforce most rules and regulations on behalf of landowners. Anyone who dares to buck the landowner hegemony is treated as a threat.

If I were a superhero and could wave a magic wand, I'd allocate public and private space rather differently. A city would have a lot more public space in the network, not just roads that get everyone from A to B, that private landowners get to squeeze in on and constrain. I'd try to put areas that a small number of homeless can use publicly without interference or repercussions of law. I'd probably establish a maximum occupancy ordinance, as I don't believe the homeless should congregate in one spot in large numbers. It's dangerous, particularly for them. Everyone's better off if homeless people are dispersed, just a few over here, a few over there.

That kind of vision of public vs. private space isn't gonna happen until the country suffers some kind of natural disaster, making LOTS of people homeless. Then the relations between public and private space may change. Because, even when landowners pay for police and military, the economy may be in enough of a shambles, and the homeless population may be so numerous, that the landowners may not simply be able to "win that war" or keep control of how society is structured anymore. I hope that story has a happy ending, some kind of reform movement rather than widespread atrocities. The Great Depression offers some historical example of the kinds of things that can happen when large numbers of people are displaced.

Sometimes the roads used to connect, but due to a bridge washout or landslide no longer do. I know of one state highway (California 2) in a national forest that has had a section closed for decades due to a landslide, and is still shown on many maps. The nearby connection with another highway they no longer pretend they are going to fix, and is not on most maps.

Yeah you'd think they could update some of these maps more frequently. Sure I can stop at a FS office and have them put X's through stuff that isn't passable, or just read their road closure notices outside the office after hours. They're often on the ball like that. But the FS office isn't always on the route, and geez, you'd think editing their actual geospatial database wouldn't kill them. Perhaps they're technically impoverished, culturally speaking.

The new MVUM should have solved the out-of-date problems with maps, but I've found numerous errors in them. Some of them were done with a real time and money crunch so they aren't all that good. Hopefully they will improve.
Bob

THere's this phrase "good enough for Government work." I wonder if MVUMs are a victim of that, if they're contracted out.