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Show CHAPTER THIRTEEN Occupancy Uses PUBLIC LANDS are used in a great many ways solely for their location or site values, with no relation to the utilization or extraction of resources. Among such nonresource uses are rights-of-way for transportation, utility, and commercial facilities. Others are residential, commercial, and industrial in character, or are for governmental services-Federal, state, or local. Such uses are provided for either by disposal or, in the case of retained lands, by permit, lease, license, or other formal document. From the earliest days of the Republic, canals and roads were significant uses of the public lands. Railroad uses became important well before the Civil War. Settlement and revenues were the principal objectives of public land policy, and to those ends the public sale of Federal land was made easy and minimum prices were kept low. Occasionally, special sales of townsite lands were authorized, where unusual demand was experienced. Customarily, occupancy uses were handled on a case-by-case basis. When more general legislation was enacted in later years, it was narrow in scope, was often inconsistent, provided few if any legislative standards, and left the terms and conditions of use largely to administrative discretion. Even the types of tenure available have varied widely. Under one law, fee title would be provided, while under another, revocable permits were authorized for the same kinds of uses. Many of the existing laws are no longer timely and should be revised. Need for Uniform Legislation Recommendation 89: Congress should consolidate and clarify in a single statute the policies relating to the occupancy purposes for which public lands may be made available. At present there are a great number of disparate laws making various provisions for occupancy uses. Some of them only relate to specific classes of public land, and some only to lands administered by particular Federal agencies. They also vary according to the types of uses and their relation to each other. Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that some even overlap and provide for vastly different tenures, terms, and conditions for the same type of use on the same land, with the choice of alternative left to the public land agency involved. It seems clear to the Commission that these laws should be simplified and codified with greater uniformity among lands, agencies, and uses. Most of the recommendations in this chapter should be incorporated into such uniform legislation. Some public lands should be excluded from certain kinds of occupancy uses. Certain types of occupancy uses of public land are incompatible with the primary purpose for which the lands have been set aside. Restrictions by statute on occupancy uses of certain retained lands, particularly special purpose areas, have also been common where such uses would be detrimental to the primary purposes for which those lands were set aside. For example, by statute, roads are not permitted in wilderness areas; hydroelectric projects may not be licensed by the Federal Power Commission in national parks; and highways may not intrude on wildlife refuges and parks unless other routing alternatives are not feasible. The Commission believes that the exclusion of all occupancy uses which would be detrimental to the primary use should be by statute, rather than left to the administrative discretion of the controlling agency. Classification of Lands for Occupancy Uses Recommendation 90: Where practicable, planning and advanced classification of public lands for specific occupancy uses should be required. Some occupancy needs for public lands can be predicted and planned well in advance of actual use. 219 |