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As I stated they are completely different in their nature, and usually also in their acquisition.
Most prescriptive rights are in no way contested, and are a simple fact of reality.
Much of the time, fee owners are not even conscious of their existence until a boundary survey is needed for some kind of project.
Only the very least experienced owners are even bothered about them.
Your understanding of easements is weak. In all subdivisions in western states the fee underlying the road is held by the fronting properties.
That means that the prescriptive right to use exists over each other owners frontages. Even if the authority that signed for the filing of the map dropped the ball completely, the roads still exist prescriptively from the first day they are in use. The matter is not subject to the laws of the states; it is a feature of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It protected the ranchers initially.
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With that, you misused your "last word".
Once more, IMO the outcome of this dispute whether it is negotiated or lititgated, will not rely on any theory of prescriptve rights or whether a parcel is land-locked. Those concepts are not relevant.
There is no doubt the 35 have a right to use the road for ingress and egress and I have not argued otherwise. One would expect that right was formally conveyed as required by the city when the common area parcel was created.
The 35's prompt lawsuit addresses the immediate question of whether the separate common areas were properly transferred in accordance with tax sale procedures.
If so, the next question is whether the new owner is obligated as a condition of title to maintain the common areas in a specific manner. If not, the new owner may have the right to effect any changes deemed appropriate including, for instance, removal of the security guard gate.
Such a right, of course, certainly has an enormous economic value that will be included in any negotiated settlement.