NO MAN'S LAND
Merchants petition village board to take over alley
By ROB PRICE THE COURIER-ADVOCATE

PHOTO BY ROB PRICE Pictured above, no one knows who owns the alley extending behind West Steuben and Liberty streets, but area merchants are asking the Bath village government to assume responsibility for the neglected property.

BATH - If you study a map of the Village of Bath, the land bordered by Liberty and Howell streets, located between Buel and West Steuben streets, appears as a blank space empty of traffic.

Walk the streets of Bath, however, and you find that land split by a wandering alley that extends east from Mechanic Street behind a row of store buildings, then turns north behind a row of Liberty Street stores before emptying onto Buel Street.

The alley is a no man's land of sorts. Village street crews decline to plow it in the winter, on the grounds the village doesn't own the property. A recent inquiry by Bath village board member Tom Sears indicated no own owns the property, Sears told the board last month. Sears based his report on a report he received from the Steuben County Real Property Tax Office.

But a group of West Steuben and Liberty street businesses is asking the village to take possession of the alley and maintain it "with proper paving and plowing," according to a petition submitted to the village board and signed by 13 business representatives.

"It's a concern to all the store owners over there," Stephanie Hillman, owner of Stephanie's Restaurant, told the board. "No one owns it, so what do we do?"

The answer is not easy, according to Bath village Mayor David Wallace.

Wallace believes someone has to legally own the property, although their identity may not be on file in the property tax office. What's needed, said the mayor, is the historical research of property titles and transfers - an assignment he said he has given to village attorney John Leyden.

"Someone owns it," the mayor told The Courier last week. "We may need to go back into old deeds."

If Leyden's search turns up an owner - or number of owners - the village board will be closer to an answer for the petitioners. One possibility, Wallace suggested, is for the owner to convey the property to the village government.

"It's going to take some digging," said the mayor.