Friday, August 8, 2008

Property squabbles on PI

I just read this story in today's Daily News about yet another land dispute on Plum Island - which is quite the coincidence as I was just about to write on the same topic.

Not the property in the story, specifically, but about how property owners seem to take over and expand over rights of way while the city seems unable to stop them. Because I live on Plum Island, it appears to be more prevalent here, although I know it's not.

When my parents moved into their home in Gloucester, my dad went out and drove stakes into the ground to mark what he had been given to believe (on his deed) was his property line.

The woman next door came out, while we were having a family picnic, pulled them up, and threw them into my parents' yard.

My neighbor came over yesterday, complaining about how he went down to the end of Old Point Road and proceeded up a boardwalk that extends off the circle at the dead end. He came to a fence that is blocking access to the basin - and indeed, to the home on the other side of the fence.

It is my understanding - and the understanding of this neighbor, after talking to people at City Hall yesterday - that all of the streets on PI provide public access to the water beyond.

A city map shows two streets out there that are obviously more 'paper streets,' ones on the map but not maintained by the city (if you live on one, however, you still had to pay a betterment for water and sewer service).

My neighbor told me that he went to City Hall to complain, and he was told that the owner has been there for 25 years, so ... So what, my neighbor wanted to know.

So I moseyed on down there this morning, and all the owner is doing is refurbishing a structure that has been partially over the right of way for 25 years. The owner of the property, who apparently also owns the little cottage beyond the fence, put the boardwalk in himself.

As Dick Monahan pointed out in a comment, it seems strange that residents have to pay to maintain a city-owned park. It also seems strange that no one can say for sure who owns that contentious clam shack on Water St.

With million dollar (or more) homes going in helter-skelter all over this island, someone better decide whether or not it's advisable to continue to have these odd like quirks all over the place.

Someday, someone is going to have to pay.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As it turns out, I understand how all these property line issues can happen, because my father was a surveyor, and I worked for him during most of my school vacations. (Surveying during Feb vacation is one of the reasons I am not a surveyor. The other is surveying through swamps in the summer.)

It might surprise most people to know how few property owners know for sure where their boundaries are located.

When my grandchildren got mobile, my daughter and her husband decided to put up a fence. The neighbor on one side complained that they were on his property. So, they hired a surveyor. It turned out that they were, in fact, 10 feet off. But, they were 10 feet off the other way! The neighbor's garage was on my daughter's property. They had to buy a piece of land from my daughter and get a special permit because the garage was too close to the line. My daughter and son-in-law being really nice people did not hold the guy up as I would have. :-)

Gillian Swart said...

:)
Thanks!