I'm really surprised that this hasn't been settled. It seems unjust that you can surround a piece of public land--or someone else's land--with your private land and deny access to it.
I remember Disney was successfully sued to allow access for the Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek resort because Disney owned all the land that would provide access to it and didn't want to allow it.
Access rules vary by state. I know in Washington, there's the concept of a 'way of necessity', where if you own (or are entitled to beneficial use of) land that is inaccessible, you are allowed to cross the land of others (the statute language says you're allowed to condemn and take the land, but I think you might only get an easement?). This is separate from what Washington calls an implied easement when a parcel was split, and access continues to one of the resulting parcels was through the other and this is allowed to continue although there was no written easement.
Looks like Wyoming has something similar [1], although I don't know if "any person whose land has no outlet to..." could include federal lands, as the federal government isn't always considered a person. Anyway, that seems to require the owner to initiate a process to obtain access, and I'm guessing whichever federal agency controls this land isn't that interested in access.
You can even purchase the land, while promising to maintain a public right of access, and then close the right of access indefinitely "for safety", etc
You can even purchase the land, while promising to maintain a public right of access, and then close the right of access indefinitely "for safety", etc
The public is reaping what it has sowed. This is only possible because for decades a huge chunk of the public has treated the pursuit of safety or "the children" or any other "you're evil if you criticize anyone who purports to stand for this" type of subject as something that is more important than all other interests.
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I'm really surprised that this hasn't been settled. It seems unjust that you can surround a piece of public land--or someone else's land--with your private land and deny access to it.
I remember Disney was successfully sued to allow access for the Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek resort because Disney owned all the land that would provide access to it and didn't want to allow it.
Access rules vary by state. I know in Washington, there's the concept of a 'way of necessity', where if you own (or are entitled to beneficial use of) land that is inaccessible, you are allowed to cross the land of others (the statute language says you're allowed to condemn and take the land, but I think you might only get an easement?). This is separate from what Washington calls an implied easement when a parcel was split, and access continues to one of the resulting parcels was through the other and this is allowed to continue although there was no written easement.
Looks like Wyoming has something similar [1], although I don't know if "any person whose land has no outlet to..." could include federal lands, as the federal government isn't always considered a person. Anyway, that seems to require the owner to initiate a process to obtain access, and I'm guessing whichever federal agency controls this land isn't that interested in access.
[1] https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/2010/Title24/chapter9.h...
You can even purchase the land, while promising to maintain a public right of access, and then close the right of access indefinitely "for safety", etc
The public is reaping what it has sowed. This is only possible because for decades a huge chunk of the public has treated the pursuit of safety or "the children" or any other "you're evil if you criticize anyone who purports to stand for this" type of subject as something that is more important than all other interests.