[PPT] - Website with information related to Peaks can PowerPoint Presentation

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Website with information related to Peaks Island paper roads

Website URL: http://pi-paper-roads.deciph.com/,

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google “Peaks Island Paper Roads”

Timothy Wyant April 24, 2016

These slides can be found

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the website at http://pi-paper-roads.deciph.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/04/meeting-slides.pdf

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Introduction

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The website

This paper roads website is my personal project.
It is not an official project of the City of Portland or of the Peaks

Island Council

Information, documents, and maps related to paper roads are

scattered in many places, and often hard to find

Many of these items are useful, but tend to be:
Narrow or incomplete
Obsolete
Inconsistent
Of unclear origin
So I began assembling relevant items on this website

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Some history

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Subdivisions – mostly circa 1900 – two examples

Welch Hilborne and Charlotte Shaw subdivisions

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Welch Hilborne plat (1921)

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Welch Hilborne plat (1921) – zoomed to title

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Welch Hilborne plat (1921) – zoomed to GEM theatre and ferry landing

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Welch Hilborne plat (1921) – rotated so North is up (more or less)

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Welch Hilborne paper streets

Paper Streets Streets to be Vacated Unaccepted Streets with Houses to be Continued Unaccepted Streets without Houses to be Continued Undesignated Road with Houses Undesignated Road without Houses

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Welch-Hil. east – aerial photo with today’s parcel boundaries

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Paper Streets – Charlotte Shaw

Paper Streets Streets to be Vacated Unaccepted Streets with Houses to be Continued Unaccepted Streets without Houses to be Continued Undesignated Road with Houses Undesignated Road without Houses

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Paper Streets – Charlotte R. Shaw plat

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Subdivision plats and aerial photos on the website

Subdivision plats are available from Cumberland County, and

can be accessed online

However, the process is not always as straightforward as one

might wish

I have many of the plats, and plan to post them to the website

in the near future

The aerial photo with address points and parcel boundaries I
btained from the City
It is already posted to the website for viewing or downloading

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The 1997 review process

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Maine statewide review of Paper Streets – 1997

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What paper streets look like

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Retention of public rights

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Result of the 1997 review in Portland and Peaks

The City filed the required list with the Registry of Deeds
This list identified 435 paper streets in 142 subdivisions
Of these, 41 were vacated, and 29 partially vacated
For Peaks, the list named 102 paper streets in 29 subdivisions
Of these, 5 were vacated, and 3 partially vacated
In at least one or two instances, the City neglected to include a

paper street on the list. The omitted streets were “deemed vacated” – that is, the City surrendered any public rights by default.

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The 1997 paper streets process

Larry Mead City staffer for Peaks Natalie Burns City attorney Art Astarita Peaks volunteer PINA PI neighborhood association Walked every PI paper street Recommendations Legalities re paper streets City of Portland Drew map of PI paper roads? Paper streets list filed with Registry of Deeds Digitized paper streets - allowing computer maps

Peaks Island paper streets after 1997 review −− South−West

Copies being placed on the PI paper roads website

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The post-1997 map of Peaks Island paper streets

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The post-1997 map of Peaks Island paper streets – zoomed north

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The 2017 review process

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Status of the 2017 review process

In September 2017, the City must decide what to do with each

paper street

Retain all public rights – accept as a street
Retain some rights – easements for some combination of

pedestrian access, utilities, or recreational use

Give up all public rights
The City has a working group on paper streets
The group does not yet have anything to release to the public
The Peaks Island Council zoning committee has contacted the

working group with initial questions and concerns

This PIC committee has been meeting to review paper streets

issues, and will be holding public informational meetings this spring and summer

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Some Maine towns are further along

It may be helpful to look at what other towns are doing.

Cape Elizabeth has published summaries of its review process

and proposed treatments of each paper street

http://www.capeelizabeth.com/home/topics/

paper_streets/home.html

Freeport has a downloadable Word file with a grid of proposed

treatment of each paper street

http://www.freeportmaine.com/page.php?page_id=101

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Example actions recommended by Freeport

See the “Paper Streets / Discontinuance” webpage at www.freeport.maine.com.

To give up all rights to the roads ...
Retain all rights ...
Retain pedestrian travel and utility right of way ...
To retain a pedestrian and non-motorized vehicle right of way ...
To take no action ... private road

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“Take no action ... private road”

The last item on the Freeport list is “Take no action ... private

road”

A town’s public rights in a paper road are presumptive – based
nly on appearance of the road on a subdivision plat
In some instances, further review of deeds can show a “paper

road” is private, with no or limited City access rights

On Peaks Island, this seems to be the case for some “paper

roads” that are in the Evergreen Landing and Quincy M Sterling subdivisions

These will likely be designated as either ”vacate” or something

like ”retain existing utility rights of way” at the end of the 2017 review

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Possible “no action” roads on Peaks Island

North tip of Peaks Island, with paper roads from the 1997 list Brown = with houses Blue = without houses The City may have limited or non-existent access rights in most — or perhaps all —

f the “paper roads” in the Evergreen Landing area, based on deed research

(colored brown in this excerpt from a map on the website)

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The paper roads website

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The website needs help

The website is a work in progress
For what is currently on it, I owe thanks to numerous people. In

particular:

Tim Murphy
Mike Murray
Art Astarita (who, in addition to digitizing the paper roads maps,

preserved many documents from the 1997 review)

The Islander who emailed me about Evergreen Landing streets,

but gave no name

I’m sure some of the things I’ve said on the site are wrong!
Please help!

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Send contributions, questions, complaints ...

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Appendix

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Road and street categories

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Undesignated roads

The maps of paper streets on Peaks Island show some roads as “undesignated”

The City may have its own definition of “undesignated”, but I

have not yet been able to unearth it

An undesignated road is not a paper road, but the City still lacks

some specific rights of way, or does not need them

A ”road” on City land – such as near transfer station – is one

example of the latter

If the City were doing some work, it could in theory move such a

road 500 feet to the right, as long is it stays on City land

The City could not do this with a “normal” road

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Undesignated roads – private roads

Some private roads are “undesignated roads”
One example is Woods Road
Such roads appear on maps, and have addresses on them
They are often used like normal roads – emergency services,

package delivery, snow plowing

Nonetheless the City still lacks some specific rights of way
For example, the City is likely not able to just launch a road

improvement project

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Undesignated roads – other reasons

Other roads are “undesignated roads” for unknown reasons (at

least to me)

One example is Tolman Road
Presumably, the City lacks some specific rights of way along this

road, or the rights of way have yet to be fully researched

It is not a paper road, because it does not appear on a

subdivision plat prior to 1987

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Undesignated roads

The maps of paper streets on Peaks Island show some roads as “undesignated”

The City may have its own definition of “undesignated”, but I

have not yet been able to unearth it

An undesignated road is not a paper road, but the City still lacks

some specific rights of way, or does not need them

A ”road” on City land – such as near transfer station – is one

example of the latter

If the City were doing some work, it could in theory move such a

road 500 feet to the right, as long is it stays on City land

The City could not do this with a “normal” road

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Streets with and without houses

The maps of paper streets on Peaks Island divide paper streets into streets “with houses” and streets “without houses”

These designations are unofficial – they have nothing to do with

the State’s definition of a “paper street”

The designations are likely convenience descriptions made

during the City’s 1997 review – probably by Larry Mead

He had a series of criteria for recommending a paper street for

“Vacate” or “Accept/continue”

The first criterion was “with houses” – if a street served houses,

it would not be vacated

In addition, some paper streets were hard to find or did not

physically exist. A tag of “without houses” warned reviewers that they “might have to look in the woods.”

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Streets with and without houses – continued

The preceding points are my own conjectures, based on

documents that I have reviewed

Because neither the “with houses” designation nor the paper

streets maps that we possess are “official”, you should treat the designation with caution

First of all, the “with houses” designation it is simply out of date

– it comes from the 1997 review

Second, the designation was made and then mapped as a

convenience – it was likely not carefully vetted

The designation is clearly incorrect for some streets. One

example is the streets in the vicinity of Evergreen Landing, which are marked on the map as “without houses”

In the maps I have prepared for these slides, I have left the
riginal designations “as is,” and made attempt to update or

correct them

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