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FYI, about the worst one I ever had to tackle involved a complicated, but small, subdivision that never developed as planned. The only means of access through the subdivision was street that ran straightwesterly for maybe 200 feet, then took a curve of roughly 90 degrees to the right (northerly), but in the middle of that was a very short street (maybe 20 feet straight) running southwesterly that opened into a cul-de-sac circle. The main route headed northerly then continued maybe 300 feet in that direction then had a similar very short street and cul-de-sac circle shooting off to the northeast. The main route then curved to go westerly for less than 100 feet, then curved to go northerly with the west edge of the street being coincident with the west edge of the subdivision and ending at the north edge of the subdivision. There was nothing but cow pasture on the west and north sides of the subdivision so that last bit of street’s only purpose was to allow one more lot to be created along the north side of the subdivision.
What really happened over time is that there was no need for the first offshoot to the southwest and no need for the last stretch of the street to the west then north. Further, the little street and cul-de-sac to the northeast had been converted into a street that connected back to the existing street along the east side of the subdivision. They accomplished this by purchasing strips off two abutting lots at the end of the cul-de-sac.
They wanted to turn that very short street/cul-de-sac/new extension street into a standard street of constant bearing and width. This isolated odd bits of the cul-de-sac, as platted. What a mess!!! Several quit claim deeds were drafted and exchanged.
What was worse was that the city also wanted to vacate the weird stretch of street described above in the northwest corner of the subdivision that curved west, then north. There is no standard procedure in a book somewhere suggesting some proper way to do that scenario. The solution was for the city to vacate that portion of street then do a quit claim deed to each adjoiner for a pre-selected plan. Then each adjoiner further made quit claim deeds to the other to confirm the plan agreed to by both adjoiners and the city. As there was no paving or curbing in that area the plan was to more or less match the mow line that the adjoiners had created over the years since subdivision creation.
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I looked in some of my indexes and encyclopedias and am not finding discussion of the sidelines. Mostly the controversies which result in common law are whether the Deed included half (or all) the street. There is one reference to a Washington State case in my ancient copy of CJS volume 11 under Boundaries which extends the line to the center on the original bearing, not perpendicular. That has disappeared from my more current PDF copy of CJS Boundaries.
Three reasons are given for the street being presumed to convey, 1) strips and gores not being useful to the grantor, 2) construing the grant in favor of the grantee, and 3) call for a monument (the street) is a call for the centerline. Any of the 3) can be overcome by evidence to the contrary. No. 3 the street being the monument seems to favor extending the sidelines to the centerline without an angle point at the sideline to me.
Curt Brown says perpendicular without citation to authority other than himself.
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I believe Wattles says perpendicular too! My book is at work. Hopefully the next surveyor honors the first guys decision. We look foolish otherwise. Jp
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Wattles says it is indeterminate, that there isn’t much if any guidance in the authorities. Then he gives graphic examples which show problems with the perpendicular method.
Wattles approach is we don’t really know but here are some possibilities while Brown’s approach is more authoritarian where he pushes a “principle” in favor of perpendicular lines and emphasizes problems with the extension method.
Wattles mentions the Washington State case in my old copy of CJS volume 11. He also mentions Kansas using proportional frontage.
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Brown was influenced by being a Southern Californian, of course. Streets were typically built by assessing the Lot owners by length of frontage so his reasoning is that it is most equitable to extend the side lines perpendicular to the centerline since that would distribute the street square footage roughly equal to what the Lot owner paid for. Wherever Lot owners did not pay assessments to build the street other equities may be considered.
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If asked the property owners would probably not wish to kink their property lines. I’ve extended the lines on the vacations I’ve done, although most of them were streets perpendicularish to the lot lines. Almost all blocks will have a block angle which will cause the street to be somewhat out of 90 to the lines. Will those get a small angle point at the street line?
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