Football field in park being upgraded - rights of neighbouring property owners? We live in Portland, Oregon (USA), in a neighborhood next to a high school which has an adjoining football field. The field is in a publicly accessible park. There is a proposal from the school district to upgrade the field to include stadium lighting, stadium seating and a fence around the field. Access will remain public, but the fence will be locked some of the time. I think it'll always be a park in that no professional sports will be played there. Very infrequently, games will be ticketed. I think that the improvements will destroy the character of the park and force the neighbours to look at stadium lights until late at night (I believe that the lights will also support local adult teams). The proposal has a lot of support from high school parents in the community (who don't live near the field) so I suspect that my view is not the majority view. My question is: what are my rights here? Looking around a bit, I see two possibilities: I have no rights. The district can do whatever they want. I can vote against them in the next election. The constitution protects my (minority) rights and I do have options. I would prefer option 2 as option 1 is not helpful. Is option 2 at all applicable? Can anyone point to a reference document or documents? For background on this topic, see: https://www.pps.net/Page/14612
You have a third option: Sue the district for violating state or local law. There are lots of recent news stories about people doing just this and winning. The US Constitution Can't Help You: The school district is not violating your constitutional rights by installing lights at the stadium. The only constitutional protection remotely connected to your situation is the "takings clause" of the 5th Amendment. It says, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." Unfortunately, the "takings clause" only applies if there is a "taking." A "taking" is generally understood to be exactly that -- you lose your property. The loss can be literal -- the government takes title to your house and turns it into a football field or freeway on-ramp -- or figurative -- the disturbance from the football field or on-ramp is so pervasive that your property becomes worthless. Since having the lights on will not destroy the value of your property, the takings clause does not apply to you. As one Justice said in a related case, the lesson here is simple: "the federal Constitution does not prohibit everything that is intensely undesirable." State or Local Law Might Help You: Even though you don't have a constitutional claim, depending on what state and city you live in, you may have a claim under state or local law. (These might be statutes, regulations, ordinances, or even your state constitution.) For example, in 2010 a group of home owners in Atherton, California who lived near the local high school sued when the school announced plans to install stadium lights. The suit claimed the lights violated local height limits, and that the night games would violate noise ordinances. The suit, plus a savvy pr campaign, got the school to agree to limits on night games. Atherton is not alone. All the way across the country, in Greenwich, Connecticut, neighbors upset about stadium lights sued and got an agreement about the use of lights. A search using high+school+lights+neighbors+sue turns up plenty of other examples. You will have to talk to a local attorney to find out what state or local laws you can use.
The applicable law is here. Any animal that crosses its owner's property line in the slightest must be restrained. Chicago law also requires fences to be physical fences, not electronic ones. So you can report the situation to the police. This may or may not result in a fine for the owner: that's at the discretion of the city. From a legal perspective, reporting violations to the police and to animal control is almost all you can do. There is, unfortunately, no guarantee that the police will investigate; but if that is not satisfactory, there are political solutions involving your alderman. Theoretically, you could sue the owner, but that would be expensive and probably less effective compared to reporting the violation.
If a trespasser openly and notoriously, exclusively and continuously possesses your property by building a fence on your land for the right time period, they automatically own the land. It still takes a court proceeding to record the passing of title (the trespasser has to prove in court that it is legally theirs). The trespasser would also have to establish that the recent survey was correct (survey errors do exist): was there an earlier survey in connection with the fence that established different boundaries? If (as it turns out) this has become his property, he abstractly has title to it, but only you and he know about it. The trespasser may have an interest in officially changing the property description, because it will officially increase the size of his lot and thus the value of the house+land. This also will increase their tax burden (while decreasing yours). The county has no knowledge of the fence: they go off of the official record, which says that you own that wedge. You also may have an interest in changing the property description, primarily to reduce your tax bite. There could also be issues with your resale of the property, since a mortgage company may require a survey of the property. Whether or not that is bad is hard to say: the consequence could be that the buyer is alerted to the fact that the lot is smaller than advertised and so on; in the current market I doubt anyone would care. If the fence goes away and you start using the land, then it will officially revert to you after a while. If you catch the party and complain within 10 years, you may recover the property (RCW 7.28.010). The limitations statute says that The period prescribed for the commencement of actions shall be as follows: Within ten years: (1) For actions for the recovery of real property, or for the recovery of the possession thereof; and no action shall be maintained for such recovery unless it appears that the plaintiff, his or her ancestor, predecessor or grantor was seized or possessed of the premises in question within ten years before the commencement of the action. That ship has (apparently) long since sailed. There is a different law pertaining to "Adverse possession under title deducible of record" which shortens the limit to 7 years, which is even less useful to the original owner. RCW 7.28.070 also shortens the time limit for an adverse possession case, to 7 years: Every person in actual, open and notorious possession of lands..who shall for seven successive years continue in possession, and shall also during said time pay all taxes legally assessed on such lands or tenements, shall be ... the legal owner of said lands There is another (more recent) tax-related provision, RCW 7.28.083. (1) A party who prevails against the holder of record title at the time an action asserting title to real property by adverse possession was filed, or against a subsequent purchaser from such holder, may be required to: (a) Reimburse such holder or purchaser for part or all of any taxes or assessments levied on the real property during the period the prevailing party was in possession of the real property in question and which are proven by competent evidence to have been paid by such holder or purchaser; This does not require them to have paid taxes, it say that the victor in the dispute may nevertheless be ordered to reimburse taxes paid by the other party (assuming the other party has paid the tax). So there is some chance of getting the taxes back. The reimbursement is at the court's discretion (continuing that section): (2) If the court orders reimbursement for taxes or assessments paid or payment of taxes or assessments due under subsection (1) of this section, the court shall determine how to allocate taxes or assessments between the property acquired by adverse possession and the property retained by the title holder. In making its determination, the court shall consider all the facts and shall order such reimbursement or payment as appears equitable and just. One should also pay attention to the last provision in that statute: (3) The prevailing party in an action asserting title to real property by adverse possession may request the court to award costs and reasonable attorneys' fees. The court may award all or a portion of costs and reasonable attorneys' fees to the prevailing party if, after considering all the facts, the court determines such an award is equitable and just. That means that the victor can request the loser to pay his attorney's fees. This is delicate math, balancing the chance of recovering some paid taxes vs. paying the other guy's costs. You could try calling the assessor to find out how much the decrease in lot size might net you (the land vs. improvement proportion of taxes is all over the map in KC, easily ranging from 60% to 250% depending on year). One additional feature of adverse possession is that it must be "hostile", i.e. without permission. If a neighbor builds on your land, you can explicitly give them revocable permission (to avoid "no you didn't" arguments, explicit and revocable written permission, signed by the neighbor, would bar an adverse possession claim). This raises an interesting question, to which I don't know the answer. Suppose the prior owner gave permission to the fence builder, and did not demand the removal of the fence when he sold the property or right after the neighbor sold his property (there was only on act of granting permission). Does the clock start from your acquisition of the property (whereupon the element of hostility is satisfied)? Or does it start from the point where they acquired the property and were in hostile possession of the land (I would bet a quarter that that's the answer). If (or, given that) the fence was moved further onto your property more recently, there is a chance to recover the newly-taken piece of land. If you grant them revocable permission to build a fence on your property, you would not be subject to an adverse possession taking for the newly-taken land. If at some point you tell them to tear down the fence and they refuse, you can sue them and the court will (almost certainly) order the removal of the fence. The neighbor might then initiate an action to quiet title on the originally-taken piece of land, so you'd be back to where you were 4 years ago. From a practical perspective, this is well-worth the small amount of money involved to consult with an attorney to get legal advice. The legal matter probably will not go away quickly, and they may be presently inclined to settle in a manner more in your favor.
I'm pretty sure in France you have moral rights and copyrights. I am writing from New Zealand, but we have some similar intellectual property laws due to being member countries of the World Intellectual Property Organisation. We are also both member countries of the World Trade Organisation (WTO has the TRIPS agreement which relates to IP). So my answer may or may not be right &ndash; check what it says in France's copyright acts: you should be able to search for terms like first owner, and moral rights, films/videos, etc. The school isn't your employer, and so the basic rule is that you as the author are automatically the first owner. Since you're not really at school to create anything or research for the school, I don't think the court would enforce a blanket term that you had to agree to that the school owns intellectual property in what you create. You probably own the copyright. You also have moral rights in what you have created, which means even if the school does own the copyright in your work, you can request they attribute it to you if they show it in public (online). Not all works have moral rights. However, in NZ if you create a film/video you do have moral rights in it.
According to this article, the Malmö Administrative District Court found that the intent of the user is immaterial to whether a camera is being used for surveillance, so even if that is not why you are doing this, it counts legally as "surveillance". The law requires a permit from the länsstyrelse (county? government), according to the Kameraövervakningslag (2013:460) (article 8 states the requirement for permit, art. 16 tells you who to apply to). I believe that a tennis court would be considered a "public place", even if privately owned. Art. 17 tells you what goes into an application (there is probably a form), and art. 18 says that the kommun gets to weigh in. Presumably it would be critical to have a consent form signed before any recording happens, and you would include that in the application.
I think that the language In consideration of permission to use, ... Recreational Sports Department ... arising from, but not limited to, participation in activities, classes, observation, and use of facilities, premises, or equipment. would be read as limiting the waiver to cases in some way connected with the RSF. Even so limited it is rather broad, and may not be enforceable. In particular public facilities are not always allowed to obtain a waiver of otherwise valid negligence claims. If it were interpreted to mean "all claims on any matter, even ones having nothing at all to do with the RSF" then I think it would be so broad as to be unenforceable as unconscionable, and as misleading, so that there was no meeting of minds.
You would report unpermitted lock replacement to the home owner. The building code regulates new construction and renovations, and is not a requirement of any and all residences. This seems to correspond to a "secondary suite", which is supposed to be registered with the city (if it is allowed in your city). Here is a link for Vancouver, for instance. Such suites are supposed to be registered and inspected, the inspection being carried out by Development, Building and Licencing: By-Law Compliance &amp; Administration (a division of the city government). This article discusses some of the legal problems that can arise from an illegal secondary suite, however the penalties would land on the property owner, and he may not have approved of this subletting or the basement suite. A less-nuclear first step would therefore be reporting it to the property owner.
In general, permission is not granted to enter the premises of another by climbing a fence unless it is explicitly granted. That the fence is on your property, but adjacent to the school's property, is a complication. The school, observing that there is a boundary fence, might reasonably rely on that to exclude people from entering other than at desired entry points. So it might be that your entry over the fence would be unauthorized and thus technically trespassing. If you were to put a gate in your own fence, the school's reliance is probably less reasonable. Or if you were to formally notify the school that you intend to enter the school grounds over your own fence. However, in practice, you are not trespassing until you are notified by the owner or owner's agent or someone with proper authority. If there is no sign, there can be no claim that you were notified by one. So until a school official or employee notices you using the fence and orders you to stop, there is no issue.