Actually, you can go build on land you don’t own. If you pay the property taxes and act as if you own it long enough without challenge from the real owner, you can file with the court to become the property owner. It’s called Adverse Possession. At least in the US.

This is what Detect Evil is for.

“Battlegrounds snobbery is a thing now, and it’s worth asking why.” 

RAWR!!! Misplaced, irrelevant rage at a building!!

I know this is a bit stale, but I roughly modeled the first route and looked at the effects of runner speed, position update time, and maximum allowed speed on the calculated distance traveled. In short, it seems that there are at least three possibilities.