A dispute between neighbors over Dunkirk’s sale of a “paper street” will likely lead to a moratorium on such transactions.

A paper street is a roadway that appears on maps but was never built. The city retains ownership of the land where paper streets were supposed to go and must maintain it.

Dunkirk officials want to sell off the parcels to adjacent landowners, to cut maintenance costs and get the properties on the tax rolls. The Common Council agreed Aug. 15 to sales of some paper street sites in the Point Gratiot neighborhood.

However, one of those sales has apparently gone awry, and council members heard about it Tuesday.

Patricia Adamowicz, of West Chestnut Street, and her son-in-law (who didn’t give his name) spoke about their situation. Adamowicz was going to buy one of the parcels outlined in the Aug. 15 resolution.

Her son-in-law said, “Since that time, we’ve been told that since we got it surveyed, the adjoining property owner sees the stakes from the survey and now they’re expressing an interest in it, I guess. This has been kind of all over the map. Trying to find out exactly what is going on with this.”

City Attorney Michael Bobseine responded. “The issue is that each property owner relative to a paper street essentially has embedded right, if you will, relative to half the paper street. Your (mother in law) wanted the whole thing, however, the other neighbor expressed an interest.

“Consequently, what we are trying to do — and I believe we’ve got an agreement but I don’t know that — they would take half and Pat would take half. They also agreed to pay for half of the survey.”

Adamowicz and her son-in-law wondered how that could happen. “This has been going on almost two years from the time she put the application in for it,” the man said. “Now that she’s had it surveyed, now they’ve decided since they can’t use their part for free, now they want it? They were well aware prior to you guys even passing the resolution that she wanted the whole thing, if they didn’t.”

“If they didn’t, is the critical piece.” Bobseine responded. “We needed the other property owner to respond.”

The attorney added, “These paper streets have been a real problem for us and I appreciate that, so we’ve tried to work through it. This is a situation where you know, yes, we had that council resolution — and here we have a situation where the adjoining neighbor wanted to have that portion of the street.”

“After the fact,” the son-in-law responded.

“After the fact, but in order for us to transfer that interest, we really needed them to sign off on that, and we don’t have that sign off… it’s city property and we’ve got to go through that process,” Bobseine said. “We have a situation right now where we’re really trying to work for both parties.”

“I really want the whole thing,” Adamowicz said. She and her late husband maintained the property for 40 years, her son-in-law said.

Bobseine sought to discuss the situation further with the duo in a meeting outside council chambers.

After they sat down, he said, “I was approached by the assessor (Erica Munson) earlier on that there might be a discussion relative to a moratorium on paper street sales. We really need to straighten this out.”

“We do,” agreed Councilman at Large David Damico.

“It’s unfortunate that we have a situation like this, but we do have a situation like this,” Bobseine said. “It takes time to get through these things and I apologize for that fact.”

“I completely understand their frustration,” Councilwoman Natalie Luczkowiak said. “I think this is a red flag that we need to really need to look into the procedure and change it to make it more streamlined — maybe change some regulations as well.”

Damico asked Munson if a resolution for a moratorium could be on the agenda for the next council meeting.

“If these people express an interest in something that nobody’s expressed an interest in in years, there should be a time limit that anybody else interested has to respond by,” said Councilman James Stoyle.

“I would like to see this shut down to streamline the process, then open it back up,” Munson said.

“Either that or else the paper streets, we don’t offer them for sale anymore and keep maintaining them,” Councilwoman Nancy Nichols said, she and Munson agreeing that would not be good for the city.

“You have full support for the next meeting from the council,” Damico said to Munson regarding a moratorium, concluding the discussion.

The OBSERVER asked Bobseine last week if an inventory of Dunkirk’s paper streets was available. He responded that there was not an inventory immediately available and that one should be created.