Greenway Easements

Civil Code Division 2, Part 2, Title 2, Chapter 4.5 deals with greenway easements in estates in real property in California.

Section 816.50 provides three legislative findings and declarations.

Section 816.52 provides definitions for the following terms: “adjacent,” “greenway,” “greenway easement,” “local agency,” and “urban waterway.”

Section 816.54 explains that a greenway easement is an interest in real property voluntarily created and freely transferable in whole or in part for the purposes stated by any lawful method for the transfer of interests in real property in this state. A greenway easement is perpetual in duration.

Notwithstanding the fact that it may be negative in character, a greenway easement is not personal in nature and constitutes an interest in real property. The particular characteristics of a greenway easement are those granted or specified in the instrument creating or transferring the easement.

Section 816.56 specifies that only the three specified entities or organizations may acquire and hold a greenway easement.

Section 816.58 says that all interests not transferred and conveyed by the instrument creating the greenway easement must remain in the grantor of the greenway easement, including the right to engage in all uses of the land not affected by the greenway easement nor prohibited by the greenway easement or by law.

Section 816.60 states that instruments creating, assigning, or otherwise transferring greenway easements are to be recorded in the office of the county recorder of the county where the land is situated, in whole or in part, and those instruments must be subject in all respects to the recording laws.

Section 816.62 provides that no greenway easement is unenforceable by reason of lack of privity of contract or lack of benefit to particular land or because not expressed in the instrument creating it as running with the land. Actual or threatened injury to or impairment of a greenway easement or actual or threatened violation of its terms may be prohibited or restrained, or the interest intended for protection by that easement may be enforced, by injunctive relief granted by any court of competent jurisdiction in a proceeding initiated by the grantor or by the owner of the greenway easement.

In addition to the remedy of injunctive relief, the holder of a greenway easement is entitled to recover money damages for any injury to the greenway easement or to the interest being protected thereby or for the violation of the terms of the greenway easement. In assessing the damages, there may be taken into account the loss of scenic, aesthetic, or environmental value to the real property subject to the greenway easement.

Section 816.64 states that nothing in this chapter is to be construed to impair or conflict with the operation of any law or statute conferring upon any political subdivision the right or power to hold interests in land comparable to greenway easements.

Section 816.66 specifies that a greenway easement granted pursuant to this chapter constitutes an enforceable restriction.