OBSERVER Photo by Gregory Bacon The Chautauqua County IDA believes it is unsafe for tractor trailers to enter 320 Roberts Road only by Talcott Street. A petition was filed Thursday that would allow the county to use eminent domain to acquire nearby land for an access road.

Chautauqua County has taken the next step in using eminent domain to obtain property in Dunkirk that would aid in the use of a cold storage facility utilized by a local ice cream manufacturer and for future development of some vacant percels.

The county Industrial Development Agency on Thursday filed a petition in state Supreme Court in Chautauqua County, the latest in a series of steps being taken to acquire a permanent easement over a property located on South Roberts Road. The county IDA is hoping to obtain, by eminent domain, 0.9 acres of land to establish an access road that is currently the site of an unused driveway owned by Refresco.

County officials want to condemn Refresco’s right of way. Doing so would allow easier access to a nearby cold storage facility, currently owned by Krog Corporation and utilized by Fieldbrook Foods at 320 Roberts Road.

Richard Dixon, county IDA chief financial officer, told the OBSERVER in July that the cold storage facility can only be entered right now off Talcott Street. For tractor trailers to enter the property, “it’s very unsafe,” Dixon said.

The unused driveway also leads to three county-owned empty parcels.

“Without the condemnation of this right of way by the IDA, we won’t have any access to those parcels,” Dixon said. “We’re looking to redevelop those brownfields. There’s major interest in those but we have no access.”

The petitions adds: “Absent the acquisition, there is unlikely to be any addition redevelopment of the adjacent property or expansion of the existing logistics operation. With no single, optimal point of entry, evidence indicates that developers will continue to be unwilling to build on the underdeveloped parcels, and Sonwil Distribution, which operates the existing cold storage facility in the northwest corner of the adjacent property, will be unable to expand its distribution operations. Therefore, without the taking, CCIDA’s goal of developing the adjacent property into a fully functional, multi-business industrial park will not be accomplished.”

The easement effort has the backing of Dunkirk Mayor Wilfred Rosas. In a letter attached to the petition, Rosas said, “In particular, Dunkirk residents are currently placed in unnecessary danger when driving along South Roberts Road because commercial trailers are forced to access the property by way of side streets and intersections that are controlled by stop signs and are intended for residential traffic. A proper access road at the existing light-controlled intersection on Progress Drive — which was built to serve as the access point for the property — is a much safer option for our citizens.”

The county IDA in July unanimously backed a resolution regarding the acquisition. According to its petition, the county said it made offers in 2019 and 2020 to obtain the land from Refresco, but was rejected.

A public hearing was held July 27 at the Jamestown Community College north campus. The hearing, along with a synopsis filed afterward, fulfilled requirements for use of New York’s eminent domain procedure law.

In its petition, the county specifically asks the court to grant the taking and to schedule a date for the filing of a claim for compensation of Refresco.