Easement

An easement is a non-ownership right to use another's land for a stated purpose — access across it, utilities through it, light and air over it, support from it. Recorded easements run with the land, binding and benefiting successors; they arise by grant, by reservation in deeds, by necessity, and occasionally by long use.

For property analysis, easements cut both ways: a burdened lot's buildable area may be constrained in ways zoning arithmetic cannot see (a utility easement through the middle of a development site is a design fact), while a benefited lot may depend on rights the record must confirm still exist. Light-and-air easements negotiated in development-rights deals are the zoning-adjacent species — private guarantees that a view corridor stays open.