Lawsuit Filed to Cement Legality of Corner Crossing in Montana

[Elky Welky]

What I don't understand, is why do I or does anyone even care about property values?

I think it is a red herring

But Albus trying to blow smoke about property values is ridiculous...and dumb.

I agree that it is ridiculous, we shouldn't have to care, and at the end of the day it is a red herring.

However, it is a powerful narrative that the enemies of the public good have in their toolbox and use to great effect to scare property owners into their corner. There are countless good people whose entire net worth is tied up in their property. "Land rich, money poor" as the expression goes. Telling them their land will be devalued (contrary to reality, sure) because of the public accessing public land is a good way to raise money for UPOM and its ilk.

There are many ways for the enemies of the public good to fight corner crossing that, though illegitimate, outright false, etc. are still compelling. As Mr. Albus has demonstrated here, "common sense" is in the eye of the beholder. (In my experience anyone who relies upon "common sense" as an argument probably doesn't have much sense of their own.) Someone already predisposed to dislike public access is going to latch on to any argument that they think advances their cause. And we would be wise to take them seriously. There's nothing more powerful than a good story, true or false.

And don't expect these people to play this clean or fair or logical. Bypassing DNRC to swap away corner-locked lands, asserting that the public can be excluded from grazing leases, holding block mgmt hostage or being petty and stepping out of BM over corner crossing, etc. All of this is happening right now, and we must be nimble and unafraid to call it out as we see it.

Can we stop them? Only if enough of us show up.

 

[Eric Albus]

Some things that in my opinion are relevant to this conversation and the claims made about corner crossing legality and it's impacts on land values.

First, I think it's prudent to point out that just because a realtor can create a sense of exclusivity to a potential land buyer, by including land locked public land in the purchase, does not mean that ranch on a per acre basis is actually more valuable. It's simply a realtor selling an idea or a percieved sense of entitlement that does not exist. The realtor, from everything I've seen, does not have the right or authority to sell exclusive access to public land or any land that is not deeded/owned by the seller. They may be able to sell/include grazing rights to that public land, but that's a far cry from ownership and exclusive access. So in a sense, at least in my opinion, they're selling a dishonest perspective to potential land buyers to boost their commissions.

Second, Western North Dakota and Eastern Montana are very similar in multiple facets. Politics, population densities, land use, hunting, etc. However, North Dakota has what we call the section line law (statute linked and shown below). This law states that every single section line, has a 33 foot public right of way on each side of that section line. So, there is a 66 foot public right of way on every single section line that is open to public travel (by foot, or by motor vehicle if there is a trail). Yet, grazing land values in Western ND and Eastern MT, at least by everything I've seen, are nearly identical (Which makes sense considering their similarities). You would think, if previous claims about loss of land value were true, that ND would have significantly lower land values. Certainly, no one could argue that a 66 foot right of way along an entire 1 mile section line, would impact land values more than just a point at a corner. Yet...


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I think there are many reasons for ND&Mt land values being near equal on pasture/grazing.
1. Rains more in ND
2. Closer to the oil money
3. Ppl go into it eyes wide open w/ easement a known factor