Title
Possible Dedication of a Portion of 922 Main Street Prior to Sale of Property
Body
RECOMMENDED ACTION (Motion):
Staff recommends that the URC direct staff to proceed with a formal right-of-way dedication process for a portion of 922 Main Street prior to selling the property.
BACKGROUND:
The Urban Renewal Agency contracted with Compass Land Surveyors in September, 2015 to perform survey work on Urban Renewal Agency - owned 922 Main Street (10th & Main). This work was contracted in order to determine and delineate railroad right-of-way for the purposes of acquiring a better understanding of a developable footprint for the property. Due to complexities associated with the site, Compass Land Surveyors needed to perform an extended analysis of property records. The research on the property goes back to 1918, which was the year of the first recorded document providing a description for the location of Singer Hill Road. The deed indicates that there is a reservation for a public easement over Singer Hill Road and the document appears to be the source of information used by subsequent maps to plot the location of Singer Hill Road. It is also noteworthy that this document is consistent with subsequent deeds in that it shows that the road was only considered an easement and suggests that underlying fee ownership runs with the subject property.
The second item is the issue of road dedication as it relates to the question of how the Urban Renewal Agency can easily sell the subject property (which includes the land under Singer Hill Road) to a third party without resolution of the Singer Hill Road question. Further analysis suggests that an efficient method of resolving this issue is to proceed with a formal dedication process. Once a dedication has been accepted, the land is still owned by the same party but the landowner no longer has any liability for roadway actions for the property that was dedicated as a public way.
Staff requests that the Urban Renew...
Click here for full text