What is the proper relationship between ownership and control over property?

Today, politicians seem to want to reduce a person's control over his property, such that it's ever-closer to ownership in name only -- such as by limiting the capacity of landowners to develop property. Also, selling plots of land on Mars would seem to be silly, given that no one controls that land. So what is the proper connection between a person's ownership over his property and his control over that property? How does that principle affect proper principles for dealing with temporarily or permanently abandoned property?