A private road is a road owned or controlled by a private person, persons or corporation rather than a road open to the public and owned by a government. Private roads can be on private land or can be constructed on government land for use by government agencies or by agreements for access to private facilities.
Private roads are private property and are not usually open to the public. Unauthorized use of a private road may be trespassing [ citation needed ]. In some cases, the owner of a private road may permit the general public to use the road. Road regulations that apply to a public road may not apply to private roads. Common types of private roads include roads retained in subdivisions of land but not dedicated to the public, residential roads maintained by a homeowners association, housing co-operative or other group of homeowners and roads for access to industrial facilities such as forests, mines, power stations and telecommunications.
There are also networks of private highways in Italy and other nations. Such highways typically are toll roads whose upkeep is paid for with user fees, [1] for example, the Dulles Greenway in Virginia, United States.
England and Wales are thought to have about 40,000 private roads[ citation needed ]. They are not normally the responsibility of the local authority, but the authority may provide services such as street lighting. They normally have to be maintained by residents. They are referred to as unadopted roads because they have not gone through the statutory process of adoption, for example under Highways Act 1980 s37 or s38. Even if not expressly or implicitly dedicated for public use, public use over time may nonetheless have created public rights of way; though by Part 6 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, in force from 2 May 2006, many public rights of way for motor vehicles in private roads have now been extinguished.
In Sweden, private road associations manage two thirds of the total road network. However, only four per cent of the total road transportation work is carried on them, mostly rural roads. In fact, only one per cent of the road transports are made on the half of the roads that do not receive government subsidies for their maintenance, with the bulk not receiving subsidies being built and maintained by the forestry industry as needed and most often closed to the public. New private roads that receive government support are often built by the government and transferred to the roads principal stakeholders, those living along it. These form a private road association to maintain it and get subsidies from the government to keep it open to the rest of the public. Even after factoring in the unpaid work of the members of the association, the cost of operation and maintenance is often considerably less than a comparable public road. [2] Finland is similar, with 280,000 km of private roads and only 78,000 km of public roads. [3]
In Canada private roads are main access routes or private driveways onto private property. These roads are typically maintained by private owners of the land they occupy. Some private roads are maintained by a municipality and are open to the public. [4] Many private roads do not have any name signage other than a sign indicating the ownership status; however, in some cities private roads are given conventional street names through the municipal addressing system. One notable private road, the Sultan Industrial Road in Northern Ontario, is 80 kilometres long and forms part of the only existing route between two major provincial highways; it is thus under a public access agreement permitting its use by the public, and nearly half of all traffic on the road in a 2016 study consisted of passenger vehicles rather than company trucks. [5]
In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, all roads of higher categories are public by law. Just the lowest category can be private. This category is called "účelová komunikace" ("účelová komunikácia" in Slovak), the adjective "účelový" can be translated as "purpose-built", special-purpose" or "utilitarian". The road law distinguish "publicly accessible" and "closed" (in a closed area) special-purpose roads. This category includes roads that are used exclusively to connect a private structure or plots to the road network, but also field and forest roads, areas such as car parks, public transport terminals, roads within industrial, military, hospital or school premises and areas etc. Private roads outside closed areas are largely subject to public law and public traffic on them can be restricted only with the consent of state authorities (public accessibility of the landscape is also protected by law). In most cases, they are not distinguished from municipal or regional roads by any signs. [6]
A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It includes not just major roads, but also other public roads and rights of way. In the United States, it is also used as an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or a translation for motorway, Autobahn, autostrada, autoroute, etc.
In urban planning, zoning is a method in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into "zones", each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for a single use, they may combine several compatible activities by use, or in the case of form-based zoning, the differing regulations may govern the density, size and shape of allowed buildings whatever their use. The planning rules for each zone determine whether planning permission for a given development may be granted. Zoning may specify a variety of outright and conditional uses of land. It may indicate the size and dimensions of lots that land may be subdivided into, or the form and scale of buildings. These guidelines are set in order to guide urban growth and development.
A trail, also known as a path or track, is an unpaved lane or a small paved road not intended for usage by motorized vehicles, usually passing through a natural area. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a path or footpath is the preferred term for a pedestrian or hiking trail. The term is also applied in North America to accompanying routes along rivers, and sometimes to highways. In the US, the term was historically used for a route into or through wild territory used by explorers and migrants. In the United States, "trace" is a synonym for trail, as in Natchez Trace.
Eminent domain is the power to take private property for public use. It does not include the power to take and transfer ownership of private property from one property owner to another private property owner without a valid public purpose. This power can be legislatively delegated by the state to municipalities, government subdivisions, or even to private persons or corporations, when they are authorized to exercise the functions of public character.
A homeowner association, or a homeowner community, is a private association-like entity in the United States, Canada, the Philippines and certain other countries often formed either ipso jure in a building with multiple owner-occupancies, or by a real estate developer for the purpose of marketing, managing, and selling homes and lots in a residential subdivision. The developer will typically transfer control of the association to the homeowners after selling a predetermined number of lots.
Housing tenure is a financial arrangement and ownership structure under which someone has the right to live in a house or apartment. The most frequent forms are tenancy, in which rent is paid by the occupant to a landlord, and owner-occupancy, where the occupant owns their own home. Mixed forms of tenure are also possible.
A condominium is an ownership regime in which a building is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual owners. These individual units are surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned and managed by the owners of the units. The term can be applied to the building or complex itself, and is sometimes applied to individual units. The term "condominium" is mostly used in the US and Canada, but similar arrangements are used in many other countries under different names.
The freedom to roam, or "everyman's right", is the general public's right to access certain public or privately owned land, lakes, and rivers for recreation and exercise. The right is sometimes called the right of public access to the wilderness or the "right to roam".
In England and Wales, excluding the 12 Inner London boroughs and the City of London, the right of way is a legally protected right of the public to pass and re-pass on specific paths. The law in England and Wales differs from Scots law in that rights of way exist only where they are so designated, whereas in Scotland any route that meets certain conditions is defined as a right of way, and in addition, there is a general presumption of access to the countryside. Private rights of way or easements also exist.
Lawn signs are small advertising signs that can be placed on a street-facing lawn or elsewhere on a property to express the support for an election candidate, or political position, by the property owner. They are popular in political campaigns in the United States and Canada.
A green lane is a type of road in the United Kingdom, usually an unmetalled or unpaved rural route.
The road hierarchy categorizes roads according to their functions and capacities. While sources differ on the exact nomenclature, the basic hierarchy comprises freeways, arterials, collectors, and local roads. Generally, the functional hierarchy can more or less correspond to the hierarchy of roads by their owner or administrator.
A planned unit development (PUD) is a type of flexible, non-Euclidean zoning device that redefines the land uses allowed within a stated land area. PUDs consist of unitary site plans that promote the creation of open spaces, mixed-use housing and land uses, environmental preservation and sustainability, and development flexibility. Areas rezoned as PUDs include building developments, designed groupings of both varied and compatible land uses—such as housing, recreation, commercial centers, and industrial parks—within one contained development or subdivision. Developed areas vary in size and by zoned uses, such as industrial, commercial, and residential. Other types of similar zoning devices include floating zones, overlay zones, special district zoning, performance-based codes, and transferable development rights.
Air Park-Dallas Airport is a public airport located 16 nautical miles (30 km) northwest of the central business district of Dallas, in Collin County, Texas, United States. The airport is used solely for general aviation purposes. It was built as an airpark-style development, with adjacent homeowners having perpetual runway access guaranteed by restrictive covenants, but no formal ownership or management interest in the physical airfield facilities. The airport was formerly within the city limits of Hebron, Texas but was annexed by the city of Carrollton in 2008; the nearby residential lots were not included in the annexation.
Preston Lake is a community located in the town of Whitchurch–Stouffville in the Regional Municipality of York in Ontario, Canada. The community is centred on Preston Lake, a natural glacier kettle lake, immediately north-east of the intersection of Bloomington Road and Woodbine Avenue, east of Highway 404, near Aurora.
An easement is a nonpossessory right to use and/or enter onto the real property of another without possessing it. It is "best typified in the right of way which one landowner, A, may enjoy over the land of another, B". An easement is a property right and type of incorporeal property in itself at common law in most jurisdictions.
Waste management in Japan today emphasizes not just the efficient and sanitary collection of waste, but also reduction in waste produced and recycling of waste when possible. This has been influenced by its history, particularly periods of significant economic expansion, as well as its geography as a mountainous country with limited space for landfills. Important forms of waste disposal include incineration, recycling and, to a smaller extent, landfills and land reclamation. Although Japan has made progress since the 1990s in reducing waste produced and encouraging recycling, there is still further progress to be made in reducing reliance on incinerators and the garbage sent to landfills. Challenges also exist in the processing of electronic waste and debris left after natural disasters.
The Davis–Stirling Common Interest Development Act is the popular name of the portion of the California Civil Code beginning with section 4000, which governs condominium, cooperative, and planned unit development communities in California. Contrary to what the title of the Act suggests, the bill was authored/drafted by University of San Diego School of Law Professor Katharine N. Rosenberry while she served as a Senior Consultant to the California Assembly Select Committee on Common Interest Developments. Assemblymen Lawrence W. "Larry" Stirling and Gray Davis added their names as authors prior to the bill being passed/enacted by the California State Legislature in September 1985. In 2012, the Act was comprehensively reorganized and recodified by Assembly Bill 805.
Chinese property law has existed in various forms for centuries. After the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949, most land is owned by collectivities or by the state; the Property Law of the People's Republic of China passed in 2007 codified property rights.
A right of way is a transportation corridor along which people, animals, vehicles, watercraft, or utility lines travel, or the legal status that gives them the right to do so. Rights-of-way in the physical sense include controlled-access highways, railroads, canals, hiking paths, bridle paths for horses, bicycle paths, the routes taken by high-voltage lines, utility tunnels, or simply the paved or unpaved local roads used by different types of traffic. The term highway is often used in legal contexts in the sense of "main way" to mean any public-use road or any public-use road or path. Some are restricted as to mode of use.