Sometimes, a right of access is nevertheless available by an argument of legal necessity or other legally recognized implication. The wood lot was often not contiguous to the agricultural land, did not front a public road, and access easements to a public road were not expressly granted. Historically, in some farming communities, landowners conveyed agricultural lands together with a wood lot on nearby property. Otherwise per these cases, the taking of another’s property for an access easement would in effect be an unconstitutional taking of another’s property. The new standard is that a landlocked property owner must establish that the public is the primary and paramount beneficiary of the opening of a road to the landlocked property. Several recent appellate court cases on the subject, however, have called into question the constitutionality of this remedy and its availability to redress the problem. The benefit of the Act was to provide the means for accessing otherwise inaccessible and unproductive tracts of land across the state. The damages for creating the road as determined by the Board of Viewers would be paid by the owner of the landlocked property. So, what does landlocked mean? Since the Act was adopted in 1836, the owner of landlocked property could petition the court of common pleas in the county where the property is located for a Board of Viewers to lay out a road on adjoining property for access to a public road for the landlocked property. For a property owner whose property does not adjoin a public road and does not have access either through an express access easement or by legal implication, Pennsylvania’s Private Road Act (the “Act”) offered the landlocked property owner a remedy.
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