Imagine my surprise today when I found the "Private Property, No Trespassing" signage has been erected on what I've always considered to be a public sidewalk on Papyrus Lane, a quiet street next to the neighborhood Starbucks at Naglee & Park Avenue that for the last 12 years allowed public access.
When the old Leiter's Pharmacy and mini Strip Mall were torn down a decade ago to make room for more residential. I felt like a good compromise was made. We lost some great old time businesses, including the well ranked French restaurant Gervais, and an old world shoe cobbler, but gained a broad price range of residential done at a nice manageable scale.
When the old Leiter's Pharmacy and mini Strip Mall were torn down a decade ago to make room for more residential. I felt like a good compromise was made. We lost some great old time businesses, including the well ranked French restaurant Gervais, and an old world shoe cobbler, but gained a broad price range of residential done at a nice manageable scale.
The 2002 redevelopment reduced the amount of retail at the corner of Naglee and Park Avenue to what is now Starbucks, H&R Block and our venerable Leiter's Pharmacy. They put the apartments above the retail so that you hardly notice them. The row of town homes was built facing busy Park Avenue. Single homes were built on the residential Emory Street and on a new street named Papyrus Lane, named after the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum it faces. This was a much better neighborhood integration project than the Avalon Alameda. The big difference was the smaller scale, a better mix of housing choices (apartments, town homes and homes) and unrestricted parking. Although the huge growth of employee parking for Leiter's compounding operations will be reduced since they are moving that part of their business to South San Jose later this year.
I'm a big fan of private property, but I draw the line at what I consider to be public roads and public sidewalks. If you are going to belong to a city, using city services, then you need to allow public access on those same roads and sidewalks.
Imagine if Golden Gate Park Master Designer John McLaren had designed the Shasta Hanchett Residence Park or the Municipal Rose Garden to be in a closed off community with no trespassing signs posted. Even the Rosicrucian Egyptian museum across from Papyrus Lane allows public access to their beautiful "privately owned" gardens.
In recent years, I've seen a loss of public access as multiple single family residential and small business lots have been combined into gated high density housing. Lately the city has foisted the development and maintenance costs of streets, sidewalks, parks, onto the developers. New parks are built just for their tenants, or if they are public parks they are being built without bathrooms. Streets are maintained by the developers or home owner's associations who feel justified adding gates, fences and no trespassing signs to what should be considered public access areas.
Streets have traditionally been owned by the city. Sidewalks are a little bit different. Legally they are city easements onto your private property giving public access to a portion of your property for the public good of allowing people to freely travel on them to get to their destination, but still allowing you to yell keep off the grass.
Posting a no trespassing sign on private property may increase your legal rights to prosecute trespassers walking down your driveway or across your lawn, but posting this signage in the public right of way is wrong and illegal.
I can appreciate that we are all getting tired of the transient that pass through our neighborhood picking out recyclables, the door to door salesmen knocking on our doors and the opportunist thief who grabs your mail and packages off your doorstep, but banning public access to our streets and sidewalks aren't the solution. It just keeps your good neighbors from walking the neighborhood and isolates our community into another car driving commuter community.
If you are going to post no trespassing signs anyways, please make sure they are actually posted on your property, and if nothing else, try to at least make them humorous. We are after all a community.
Imagine if Golden Gate Park Master Designer John McLaren had designed the Shasta Hanchett Residence Park or the Municipal Rose Garden to be in a closed off community with no trespassing signs posted. Even the Rosicrucian Egyptian museum across from Papyrus Lane allows public access to their beautiful "privately owned" gardens.
In recent years, I've seen a loss of public access as multiple single family residential and small business lots have been combined into gated high density housing. Lately the city has foisted the development and maintenance costs of streets, sidewalks, parks, onto the developers. New parks are built just for their tenants, or if they are public parks they are being built without bathrooms. Streets are maintained by the developers or home owner's associations who feel justified adding gates, fences and no trespassing signs to what should be considered public access areas.
Streets have traditionally been owned by the city. Sidewalks are a little bit different. Legally they are city easements onto your private property giving public access to a portion of your property for the public good of allowing people to freely travel on them to get to their destination, but still allowing you to yell keep off the grass.
Posting a no trespassing sign on private property may increase your legal rights to prosecute trespassers walking down your driveway or across your lawn, but posting this signage in the public right of way is wrong and illegal.
I can appreciate that we are all getting tired of the transient that pass through our neighborhood picking out recyclables, the door to door salesmen knocking on our doors and the opportunist thief who grabs your mail and packages off your doorstep, but banning public access to our streets and sidewalks aren't the solution. It just keeps your good neighbors from walking the neighborhood and isolates our community into another car driving commuter community.
If you are going to post no trespassing signs anyways, please make sure they are actually posted on your property, and if nothing else, try to at least make them humorous. We are after all a community.