Wow, now that's a case of paint^W checkering oneself into a corner.
OK, I can understand inaccessible public land; it's unpleasant but not directly infringing anyone's property rights. But how the owners of the private parcels within the checkerboard pattern even access their land? Passage through public land may be impossible because other private land stays in the way.
I suppose some agreements between land owners exist for passage. Similar agreements can likely apply to general public.
How did the original land planners miss the idea of having 15-20 ft of public land between private parcels, to allow building a road later on, escapes me. It's a great example of how little intellectual effort, even of the common-sense type, is often expended on questions of a colossal consequence.
I haven’t read the article, and maybe there is an answer there, but my immediate theory are easements. That is, the land is theirs but the owner of an adjacent property has the right to access their property through a defined corridor. Here in Washington state I know of some properties that even have public easements on them. Meaning that if their property blocks access to a public land, the public has the right to access that public land through a defined corridor.
The article explains how the explicit lack of such easements and corridors is causing problems.
Corridors and easements exist somewhere, and are discussed as a way out of the trap.
It's possible for an easement to exist for the owner of a private corner-locked parcel, but not for the public. Which would allow private owners legal access to their land, but still prohibit public access to the public land.
There's probably a mechanism for the county to establish a road.
There probably isn't real demand or funding to build a road. In Michigan, a lot of the roads used for land access are maintained when a timber harvest needs the road and then very little otherwise.
OK, I can understand inaccessible public land; it's unpleasant but not directly infringing anyone's property rights. But how the owners of the private parcels within the checkerboard pattern even access their land? Passage through public land may be impossible because other private land stays in the way.
I suppose some agreements between land owners exist for passage. Similar agreements can likely apply to general public.
How did the original land planners miss the idea of having 15-20 ft of public land between private parcels, to allow building a road later on, escapes me. It's a great example of how little intellectual effort, even of the common-sense type, is often expended on questions of a colossal consequence.