Suburban Squatters Find Private Uses for Public Land

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Parks Under Siege

In parks across the Washington region, neighbors are encroaching onto the public land. The incursions have spurred discord in quiet cul-de-sacs and a sharp debate over citizenship, the environment, and just what makes a park a park.

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"Hey, it belongs to everybody. The more you whittle it away, the less there is to see," Kimbrell said.

William Gibb, the property's owner, said he has called a contractor. "Once it comes to your attention, you correct it. I think that's the responsible thing to do," he said.

Gibb declined to say whether he knew he was taking parkland when he had the fence built in 1990.

"We didn't really focus on it at the time," Gibb said. His $1.6 million property also has a pool out back. But, he said, "the pool, I'm sure, is in our property line."

Violators are easily missed. In Fairfax, parks cover 24,000 acres, nearly 10 percent of all land. Even after discovery, delays can mount.

In a September 2000 letter, Fairfax officials told Dennis Byrne that a "large area" of a park beside his home south of Reston had encroachments, including "part of a gate, wire fencing, horseshoe pits, two evergreen trees and a portion of an asphalt court" with a basketball hoop. They said they might discuss sparing the sliver of the court in the park "pending your good faith efforts mitigating the other encroachments." They gave him until the end of September.

Byrne seemed keen to try to take legal control of the parkland, officials said, but they told him squatters rights don't apply to parks.

An inspection in April found "no progress," according to a database maintained by Fairfax parks officials to track dozens of violations and potential violations. Late last month, parkland remained fenced in as part of his yard, and Byrne declined to comment.

Rierson, the Fairfax parks official, said there has long been a reluctance to bring the legal hammer down on residents. Environmental education is easier with a soft sell, he said, and most people quickly pull back when asked to.

"Sometimes that doesn't work and people say 'so what' and walk away," Rierson said. But he added: "Encroachments are an illegal act. You will pay the consequences. . . . It might not be next month, or even within the year, but it will happen."

Often the consequences are left to later owners.

Edward Matthews added a tennis court to his Oakton home in the 1980s. A significant amount of it is in Little Difficult Run Stream Valley Park, according to park records.