Amy,

Yes, you are correct that several “unknown” parcels exist west of the recently acquired County Highway property.

The attachment shows the IMI property per Sauer survey (cyan). The “red” lines represent the approximate old railroad centerline and right-of-way. The four color shaded tracts represent the recently acquired County Highway property (per deed description).

As you can see, the County Tax Parcel geometry is very suspect. It is also evident that the County Highway has maintained and occupied the adjoining “south half” of the old railroad right-of-way which would be portions of the US Railroad Vest tracts.

A follow up meeting to discuss would be good.

Daryl

Daryl –

Thanks for all this work and following up with Jim McCanna.  It looks like the “Unknown” tracts are all west of the properties conveyed to us by the County per your attachment (note they are between Cedar and Union extended south). 

It’s also my understanding that Mayor Ley has already spoken with Mr. Seiss and the Souder brothers about the trail crossing their properties, but the Mayor can chime in on that one.  I do have concerns about IMI because they recently obtained a variance to install fencing because of security reasons. If we can avoid needing a pedestrian easement from IMI, that might save us some grief.  We may also want to engage IMI to determine how we can alleviate their securing concerns and integrate those features (perhaps a fence) into the trail project.

Per Erik’s follow up email, it sounds like an internal meeting is the preferred next step.  Once Brandy is back in the office, I’ll see if she minds getting that on the Mayor’s calendar for us.

Thanks,

Amy & Erik,

Sorry for late response.

I would agree that IMI’s recent property boundary survey encompasses much more than is shown in GIS, and this should be corrected by the County based upon said recent boundary survey. I will request from Sauer Land Surveying the AutoCAD file so we can review the boundary per survey in GIS. I agree this will encroach into US Railroad Vest parcel geometry.

The attachment is a representation of the four tracts of real estate recently acquired from the County strictly based upon old base deeds. I believe the County can and should modify the tax parcel line-work to reflect this recently acquired boundary which could or should eliminate some of the remaining “DeKalb County Commissioners” tracts or “Unknown” tracts.

I did bring this up with Jim McCanna the other day and he said that the intent of the sale of the County Highway property to the City was to convey all of the County property in this area, and he would not have a problem cleaning this up, however that is done.

I believe getting a new boundary survey performed of all that real estate lying north and east of Eckhart Park and adjoining IMI is warranted. Then either quite title or adverse possession affidavit can be executed, or something. Would need to get some quotes for survey work. We may also want to include in new survey, the old railroad right of way the City owns from 18^th Street to Center Street just so we know exactly where the boundary lines are.

It would also be recommended to discuss our plans for a “trail” across Seiss and Souder properties to get their approval before we get too far along.

Daryl

Erik and Daryl –

We began assembling a Next Level Trails Grant application for the Mayor’s Cedar Creek – Outdoor Theater Leg Trail and ran into a few challenges related to land ownership and easements. We’d like to move forward with working out these ownership issues so we can proceed with this application in 2022.

Please see the attached maps to illustrate the location of these properties.

1. US Railroad Vest Corp Property (Parcel ID #18-06-32-401-001 and Parcel ID#18-06-32-329-001) – These parcels both have delinquent taxes for several years, and we have a survey from 2017 from an adjoining property owner (IMI) that shows they actually own a big piece of this first parcel.  We wonder if the Beacon/GIS data is incorrect.  What do we need to do to figure this out?  IMI’s survey and deeds are attached, FYI.  We requested the deeds for these two parcels from the County Recorder’s Office, but they were unable to locate them.  We also searched their files and were unable to locate them (even though we are not very experienced in searching their files).
2. Unknown ownership (Parcel ID #18-06-32-328-005; Parcel ID #18-06-32-328-010; Parcel ID #18-06-32-328-011; Parcel ID #18-06-32-328-007; and Parcel ID #18-06-32-328-014) – These actually show as “UNKNOWN” ownership in Beacon/GIS.  Daryl suggested Quiet Title?  Can we start that process or a process to obtain ownership of these parcels?
3. DeKalb County Commissioners (Parcel ID#18-06-32-328-012) – This shows up in the middle of all of the “Unknown Ownership” parcels, and the DeKalb County Recorder’s Office was not able to provide / find a deed for this property.  Everything around this parcel is either Unknown or owned by the City of Auburn.  Can we dig a little deeper on this one, too?

If we need to meet to discuss these, please let me know.  Otherwise, I believe Mayor Ley wants to take the necessary steps to figure out the ownership so we can move forward accordingly.

Thank you,