Access To Public And Private Lands

When it comes to urban planning, to what extent and under what conditions should the community’s interest prevail over the rights of private property owners? Public Interest, Private Property addresses this question at a time when pollution, urban sprawl, and condo booms are forcing municipal governments to adopt prescriptive laws and regulations. Case studies focus on spheres in which public values and private property rights collide – expropriation law, natural resources regulation, green development, and water provision – laying the groundwork for more active debates on the issues currently shaping our cities.

In January 2003 the minister for rural affairs, Jim Sutton, set up the Land Access Ministerial Reference Group to study issues around access along and to New Zealand's rivers and coastal margins, to public land and across private rural land. This initiative triggered two years of controversy over walking access across private land, from January 2003 to December 2004. 'Walking Access across Private Land: Behind the Soundbites' scrutinised a typical contribution to that controversy, the Federated Farmers paper, 'Mythbusters'. 'Walking Access across Private Land: Behind the Soundbites' was published in December 2004. An adapted version of it later became Part 3 of Foot-tracks in New Zealand: Origins, Access Issues and Recent Developments (2011). Page size: A4 File format: PDF Number of pages: 94 About: Walking, Recreation, Access to land, Federated Farmers, Foot-tracks, New Zealand.

Conflicts between sportsmen and landowners over the issue of access to public domain lands result primarily from economic factors associated with recreational uses of these lands. This report describes the problems experienced in its management of the Piceance Creek area in Colorado and the Caliente Mountain area in California. All access roads to both areas pass over privately owned land; the owners restrict access over these private roads. Alternative arrangements that would more fairly apportion costs and benefits to landowners and sportsmen alike are evaluated.