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- Title
Community Claim of Right.
- Authors
Aronsohn, Jennifer
- Abstract
Vacant properties are more than an eyesore or a sign of neighborhood blight: they contribute to wider social and legal problems for residents and are a significant expense for cities. Cities across the nation acquire and hold vacant and tax foreclosure properties to abate public nuisances and protect communities from criminal activity. Even though these properties are owned by local governments, they are treated analogously to private property with the city as the sole owner. Therefore, the city has a right to exclude, and the surrounding community has no inherent license to use these open spaces. Perhaps most troubling, because law enforcement is permitted to police city-owned property more aggressively than private property, persons entering city lots can be harshly treated. Unsurprisingly, low-income and minority communities are disproportionately affected as vacant lots are usually concentrated in their neighborhoods. Yet the proliferation of city-owned vacant lots presents a great opportunity. Historically, cities have dismantled low-income communities by taking their property; now, they can service such property to strengthen those communities. This Note argues that cities can grant neighborhood residents or the general public a nonpossessory ownership right in city-owned vacant lots, thereby giving the community the opportunity to regain ownership over its neighborhood. Instead of a city holding sole exclusion rights to its vacant lots, it could grant an easement for rights to legally use the properties, and in return neighborhood residents will maintain them. This policy reform will embody a theoretical recognition that ownership over open space can be attained from a community's use of it. The assumption that ownership is only from title will be reversed and replaced by the realization that it can emerge from usage or stewardship.
- Subjects
SOCIAL problems; LOCAL government; LAW enforcement; PROPERTY rights; OPEN spaces
- Publication
Urban Lawyer, 2021, Vol 51, Issue 1, p135
- ISSN
0042-0905
- Publication type
Article