I don't really agree with you, it's not in the public interest that property owners should be able to bogart land merely by encircling it, however the situation should arise, and it invites obvious abuses. Incidentally, the property owners in the article are doing just that, first by selling landlocked property evidently with an agreement among eachother to never sell a public right of way, and then by selling tours that wouldn't be necessary if they had, a form of rent seeking.
I think the fact that the state state initiated and brought about this situation has a major influence on my opinion. The state created the problem which it is now presumably struggling to resolve.
The Californian public got by just fine without access for 180 years. There is no urgent need for the public to access the location. Nobody will die or have major hardship without it.
Like I said above, I think there needs to be a extremely compelling need to use eminent domain.
I dont think the government should be engaging in minor utilitarian optimization. That is to say, there should be an very high threshold to use government power even if the the cost to the individual is quite small.
Where the government has trump cards which override individual rights and freedoms, they should be used rarely and out of necessity.
I don't really agree with you, it's not in the public interest that property owners should be able to bogart land merely by encircling it, however the situation should arise, and it invites obvious abuses. Incidentally, the property owners in the article are doing just that, first by selling landlocked property evidently with an agreement among eachother to never sell a public right of way, and then by selling tours that wouldn't be necessary if they had, a form of rent seeking.