> I think the main reason people get nervous about "the public" roaming their land is the liability and the personal injury lawsuit industry in the USA
This is somewhat a solved problem in the US, what you're describing is actually nefarious behavior by cities and counties. I'll give an anecdote and I'm sure someone will come tell me if I'm wrong :)
In Texas we called these "public easements". Back then in order for the city or county to establish a public easement they had to establish that there was a reason, they had to indemnify the area and some buffer around it, and they were obligated to maintain the land that they created the easement on. Sounds simple, right? Not so much.
Cities and counties would often short change the indemnification, leaving the land owner on the hook for things they shouldn't be on the hook for. Sometimes the city would also have vaguely phrased policies like, "all public easements must have sidewalks" and those sidewalks would often incur some amount of damage to the landscape. Think about, for instance, a sidewalk going from a road, through someones property, to what is a dirt trail through the woods. Doesn't really make sense - but the city has a policy it's obligated to abide by!
I think in general cities and counties could benefit from some non-court oversight to these processes with the public that don't need to involve expensive things like lawyers and are frameworked to understand the perspective of both the public and people giving access. There should also be a zero tolerance policy for underindemnifying the easement.
Since you mentioned homlessness - I now live in Portland. Here's the way I deal with it:
If you camp on public land around my neighborhood I expect you to be a good neighbor. Clean up your trash, no feces or urination in public, no leering/jeering/being creepy etc... I've generally provided water, heating devices, medical aid, etc to people that need it - the same way a good neighbor would.
Some amount of people don't care about those boundaries though and will violate every single basic human expectation you can have. City code enforcement is generally not setup to handle disputes like this and neither are the police so it puts the public in really weird spots. I don't know how to solve that, but those folks aren't using easement rights. They're using public camping rights, which are entirely different and have more to do with camping on BLM and forestry land.
This is somewhat a solved problem in the US, what you're describing is actually nefarious behavior by cities and counties. I'll give an anecdote and I'm sure someone will come tell me if I'm wrong :)
In Texas we called these "public easements". Back then in order for the city or county to establish a public easement they had to establish that there was a reason, they had to indemnify the area and some buffer around it, and they were obligated to maintain the land that they created the easement on. Sounds simple, right? Not so much.
Cities and counties would often short change the indemnification, leaving the land owner on the hook for things they shouldn't be on the hook for. Sometimes the city would also have vaguely phrased policies like, "all public easements must have sidewalks" and those sidewalks would often incur some amount of damage to the landscape. Think about, for instance, a sidewalk going from a road, through someones property, to what is a dirt trail through the woods. Doesn't really make sense - but the city has a policy it's obligated to abide by!
I think in general cities and counties could benefit from some non-court oversight to these processes with the public that don't need to involve expensive things like lawyers and are frameworked to understand the perspective of both the public and people giving access. There should also be a zero tolerance policy for underindemnifying the easement.
Since you mentioned homlessness - I now live in Portland. Here's the way I deal with it:
If you camp on public land around my neighborhood I expect you to be a good neighbor. Clean up your trash, no feces or urination in public, no leering/jeering/being creepy etc... I've generally provided water, heating devices, medical aid, etc to people that need it - the same way a good neighbor would.
Some amount of people don't care about those boundaries though and will violate every single basic human expectation you can have. City code enforcement is generally not setup to handle disputes like this and neither are the police so it puts the public in really weird spots. I don't know how to solve that, but those folks aren't using easement rights. They're using public camping rights, which are entirely different and have more to do with camping on BLM and forestry land.