COPYRIGHT 2017 CAROLE OSTERINK
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Down by the Riverside
On Tuesday, Gossips published photos of work going on south of the dock and west of the railroad tracks, on the parcel of land whose ownership the 2011 Local Waterfront Revitalization Program indicated Holcim would transfer to the City of Hudson. Recently, Gossips received this aerial image which shows exactly where the regrading and paving took place. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)
It seems the work was to create some sort of shared access road for the railroad and A. Colarusso & Sons, but the question remains why this work did not require a conditional use permit from the Hudson Planning Board. Also, it's interesting to note that the work involves the 4.4 acres that actually still belong to the City of Hudson because, as demonstrated by the Valley Alliance four years ago, the City illegally transferred ownership of the land to St. Lawrence Cement, the predecessor of Holcim, in 1981.
COPYRIGHT 2017 CAROLE OSTERINK
COPYRIGHT 2017 CAROLE OSTERINK
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Lo and behold, the lawyer used by the Valley Alliance to research the 4.4 acres is now our City attorney!
ReplyDeleteWho can imagine a better advisor for the repatriation of this lost acreage?
But if the sale was illegal, and thus illegitimate, doesn't the City still own the land?
If so, what's the legal procedure? A letter announcing the discovery? And if it's that easy, why wasn't this pursued under the previous administration?
Interestingly, when the Lone Star Cement Corp. sold us the parcel in 1969, the deed referred to the adjoining access road as "the public way."
The deed is specific: "[A]ll that tract and parcel of land .... together with all of Lone Star's right, title and interest in and to the right of access to the said Dock Property from the public way" (L453, p. 16).
The 1995 "Non-exclusive Surface Easement and Right of Way Easement" between Consolidated Rail Corp. and St. Lawrence Cement is also held "in common" with the grantor's "successors and assigns and others, for vehicular and pedestrian" use (L787, p. 228).
Makes ya think ...
At last, a permanent home for those picnic tables generously donated by Etsy.
ReplyDeleteAn easement is an interest in land that grants or limits the right to use that land by someone who doesn't own or possess it, according to the legal firm Koley Jessen, and a permanent easement is one that is attached to the deed and continues to affect the land through subsequent changes in ownership.
ReplyDeleteInteresting question: if the City owns the 4.4 acres, but the easement was created by an illegitimate "owner" of the same acreage who believed it had purchased the land from the City, then how permanent can the easement be?
DeleteI'd think not very permanent. And that's a good thing, because we don't want Amtrak messing with our picnic tables.
Two hundred years ago all county roads led to the river, now they lead to rails that block our collective (permanent) easement.
DeleteThe land beneath the rail bed was given to the HRRR to promote transportation before automobiles. They now obstruct more transportation than they promote.
The tracks will eventually be moved inland, high and dry above the high water line, with no grade level crossings, because that's where they should have been laid from jump.