What is a "ROW?"

[SkeLeton]

This ma not be actually a cyburbia culture speak, but quite probably a planner speak I don't know, but anyways:

What is this 'ROW' you speak of?

 

[giff57]

This ma not be actually a cyburbia culture speak, but quite probably a planner speak I don't know, but anyways:

What is this 'ROW' you speak of?

Stands for Right of Way. It is the publicly owned area that a street runs through

 

[SkeLeton]

Thanks
I can't believe I couldn't figure it out by myself.. it's quite obvious now!

 

[Rem]

Stands for Right of Way. It is the publicly owned area that a street runs through

A right of way in Australia is normally privately owned land over which an easement favouring another property owner or the public is created. It may be for access, pedestrian movement, emergency access etc. giff57's explanation helps explain to me why I've beenmissing the meaning of some earlier discussions.

 

[donk]

Rem, to confuse things further.

Here, it can be either a private agreement to cross another's property or the description of where a public street of rail line runs. You figure it out by the context it is used in.

 

[Cardinal]

A right-of-way is any ground, owned outright or by easement, intended for public access. For example, a street right-of-way would be the (usually 66-foot wide) tract of land in which the street is located. Mostly, the public (city) owns this land except in older rural areas, where the land on which the road is located is often privately owned. Right-of-way are platted, so the ROW can exist without a road being built within it. You can have rights of way for railroads or bike paths or foot paths, such as a mid-block connection we put in a new subdivision plat. Here in lake country, shoreline subdivisions often put in access from the road to the lake, so that "uphill" residents would have lake access rights. It all gets pretty complex.

 

[SGB]

The ROW thread

A right-of-way is any ground, owned outright or by easement, intended for public access. For example, a street right-of-way would be the (usually 66-foot wide) tract of land in which the street is located. Mostly, the public (city) owns this land except in older rural areas, where the land on which the road is located is often privately owned. Right-of-way are platted, so the ROW can exist without a road being built within it. You can have rights of way for railroads or bike paths or foot paths, such as a mid-block connection we put in a new subdivision plat. Here in lake country, shoreline subdivisions often put in access from the road to the lake, so that "uphill" residents would have lake access rights. It all gets pretty complex.

[Note to Mods: Time to split this off into a seperate thread in Planes, Trains etc.?]

To further confuse things, while ROWs are platted under most modern site plan or subdivision review processes, there are tons of ROWs out there (many of them never accepted by a municipality, and thus private) that are not.

If you see the potential for chaos in property title searches and municipal review of lot changes, you've got the picture!

 

[Richmond Jake]

ROW

I'll tell you what drives me nuts, I've recently stumbled across a number of recorded but undescribed ROWs. What a mess this causes when our ordinance establishes setbacks from ROWs.

 

[Rem]

The things you call ROW for public roads we call Road Reserves - they are owned by the Crown (State Government) until a road is built on them. After a road is built they are allocated to either the state or local road authority. Ownership of these roads have a special legal status and are affected by many common law rights and obligations as well as statutes.

Some new state roads are owned in fee simple (equivalent to private ownership) by the state road authority. I understand they do this so as to maximise their control over things like access and design decisions.

 

[donk]

Rem, we have crown reserve roads also.

They are typically a ROW that was drawn on a map 200 years ago and never built, but the crown retains ownership of.