The Bayview subdivision lake access strip viewed from Rosebud Avenue.
The Twin Lakes Village Board is moving to finally settle a land ownership issue that has cropped up now and then for the last 90 years.
The subject property is a 20-foot wide strip of land in the Bayview subdivision that goes from Rosebud Lane east to Lake Mary. The property’s official ownership came up again recently when an area resident sought relief from a storm water drainage problem with their property, said village administrator David Cox.
Monday night, Cox proposed to the board the passage of a resolution acknowledging that the property was never accepted by the village, that the property has never been maintained by the village, that the property is not a public right of way and is owned by the members of the neighborhood association. The village would also work with the county to get a parcel number designated for the strip.
Questions about the property in the subdivision created in the 1920s have sprung up in the 1950s, the 1990s and in 2001. Village Board members at the Committee of the Whole meeting Monday seemed overwhelmingly in favor of taking steps to settle the matter once and for all.
The board is expected to formally consider the action Monday, Aug. 15.
Nothing but smoke and mirrors to cover up what ithe issue is really all about….and it’s not ownership of the 20-ft strip, but first,
I will clarify ownership of this 20-ft srip of land. Never mentioned is the fact that property owners of Bay View Subdivision have in their deeds under Restriction #12 which reads as follows, to-wit: “The owners of inside lots which are the lots west of the highway, paralleling the lake shore, have exclusive control over the twent-foot strip and can regulate the use thereof according to the pleasure of the Bay View Property Owners Association.”
Ownership is not, nor ever was an issue for we in Bay View Assn. One of our members created this attention in order to get the Village to solve & pay for a stormwater runoff problem in their front yard hence we were presented with a proposal from David Cox in the name of the Village for $9000 project of which the Village will pay $7000 to run a stormwater drain pipe from (ONLY) thier property down our easement. They need our permission because we own the property. This is the reality behind our so called “questionable” ownership.
Ms Warkenthien is correct. At this time, the matter of the property’s status as either a public Right of Way or private property was not the main question. As she points out, the Village requested an easement from the Bay View Association for permission to install a storm water drain across the property. The intent of the storm drain was to provide drainage from the properties on the west side of Rosebud Avenue between Indian Point Road and Valerie Lane. The low point in this area lies primarily on a single property.
When the Association was approached about an easement for the storm drain, it seemed that some of the resistance to the granting of the easement arose from concerns that the Village would somehow use the pipe’s presence on the lake access parcel as leverage to gain control over the entire parcel. It seemed appropriate to attempt to resolve this issue in order to alleviate this concern. Due to the fact that this parcel of land looks like Right of Way on the plat maps maintained by the County, the question of its status has been raised periodically over the years (as discussed in the article). Each time, it appears that the Village determined it had no interest in the property but took no action to clarify the matter.
I believe the Village Board agrees that the parcel is not public Right of Way and therefore will take steps to officially clarify that fact to prevent the issue from arising in the future and to address the concern that the Village somehow wishes to exert control over the property. The intended end result will be the clear designation of the parcel as private property of the collective owners in the Bay View Subdivision, through the homeowners association, with a parcel identification number, a proper assessment of its value, and proper payment of property taxes. Once this is complete, the Village will address the storm water issue by some appropriate method. This could include use of the Association’s private property for access to the lake or some other method of reducing the amount of water that stays on the properties west of Rosebud Avenue.