December 3, 2012 Ariel Wittenberg

North Street, Fairhaven: The road that wasn’t and the town that hopes it will be

FAIRHAVEN — North Street, which runs between Adams and Cherry streets, looks like any other in Fairhaven. It’s a quiet road with few passing cars where Christmas lights and lawn reindeer have just begun to make their appearances. It’s paved, is plowed in the winter, and it receives postal and trash pickup services, just like any other public street.

Except North Street technically isn’t a public street.

Six years ago, when the Department of Public Works wanted to use state funding to repave the road, officials did what the town always has to do when using state funds: Prove that the street is town-owned by looking it up in a 4½-inch thick book of deeds in the Town Clerk’s Office.

“It was a formality, just to double check,” Town Planner Bill Roth recalled.

But when he looked in the book, North Street was nowhere to be found. It had never been formally accepted by the town and was therefore not a public road.

“I don’t know what happened to North Street,” Town Clerk Eileen Lowney said Thursday, looking at the same 4½-inch thick book. “But it’s not in here. If it was accepted, it would be.”

— Read more of this article at: http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121203/NEWS/212030338/-1/NEWS01

Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.