[Massplanners] Dissolving a paper street

[Michael McCarthy]

Hello Mass. Planners,

I wanted to check the opinions of the great minds on our trusty listserv before I dove into the literature on this. We have a petitioner seeking to dissolve a paper street that divides two parcels he owns. The "street" is short and only abuts two other parcels before connecting to an existing public way. The petitioner and the abutters all have frontage on existing adjacent streets, so nobody would need to rely on this street to be built out for frontage in the future (no landlocking). He's presented us with a draft plan proposing the road be split into three parcels divided among the abutters but has asked what the contingency is if one of the abutters does not want to assume ownership of the land for tax or other reasons. The owner of one of the abutting properties lives out of state and he has had trouble contacting him.

The way I see it, there are two options: 1) he revises the plan to only dissolve the paper street between his two parcels, which is all he really wants to do anyway so he can extend his home or 2) he pursues agreements to have the abutters convey to him the land which they are entitled (he has indicated that this is agreeable to him) and provides us some notarized documentation. Do these approaches sound reasonable? Am I missing something here?

Thank you in advance,

Mike McCarthy
Assistant City Planner
City of New Bedford - Dept. of City Planning
508-979-1488

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