Published In
Journal of Law, Property, and Society
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-2025
Subjects
Property, Volumetric Subdivision
Abstract
Henry Smith’s influential architectural or modular theory of property places things, defined by the right to exclude, at its core. Property as “The Law of Things” relies on an exclusionary strategy, augmented with governance strategies that delineate particular rights of use, to define owned things and to enable their uses. This Article considers that claim and Smith’s call for multi-dimensional theorizing that accounts for property in “the real world” and “in real life” through an analysis of the increasingly common practice of volumetric subdivision to produce three-dimensional property. Focussing on the statutory frameworks in the Canadian province of British Columbia, this Article describes the practice of subdividing land into air space parcels and then into condominium lots. The three-dimensional properties that emerge are embedded within condominium and, further, within air space parcel agreements that use easements and covenants to define legal relationships, including rights of access and support, obligations for repair, and provisions for cost-sharing and dispute resolution. This Article argues that the air space parcel and condominium frameworks are becoming the applied architecture of property and that Smith’s modular theory, with its emphasis on the things of property and the right to exclude, does not provide a satisfactory account of the property that they produce. However, in dealing with the emerging and, in some instances, almost unintelligible complexity, the Article turns back to the work of Smith and others in concluding that interests which are produced and represented as property should be placed within structures that conform with principles that animate the law of property.
Citation Details
D.C. Harris, "Volumetric Subdivision and the Architectures of Property" (2025) 9 Journal of Law, Property, and Society.