Mount Pleasant Questions Lakeview Avenue Owernship
The Town of Mount Pleasant is seeking to learn who owns property in the Lakeview Avenue area in an effort to prevent it from spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace a local bridge.
After the town Highway Department discovered deterioration of the bridge located beneath Lakeview Avenue where it crosses Davis Brook in Valhalla the town closed Lakeview Avenue at its intersection with Railroad Avenue on April 26. “The closure will be immediately west of the Taconic Parkway,” town Supervisor Joan Maybury wrote in an April 25 letter to residents last month. “There will be no westbound access from the Taconic Parkway and no eastbound traffic beyond Commerce Street, except for local access to the Kensico Cemetery and Railroad Avenue.”
“Plans are underway to design a replacement bridge,” Maybury wrote. “In the meantime, the closure of this section of roadway is necessary to ensure public safety.” She added that until the bridge is replaced traffic will be detoured.
At the May 3 town board work session, Maybury said there was no choice by to close the bridge the bridge last month. “It’s not safe to drive over,” she said, adding later, “We did the right thing.”
Maybury said it could cost between $200,000 and $300,000 to construct a new bridge. But town attorney Gerald Reilly said he felt building a new bridge could actually cost as much as $500,000.
But according to Reilly, the town may not have to spend anything to replace the bridge. Some of the property in the area could belong to a state government authority and some other land may be privately owned, he said. “If we don’t own this” the town would not have to pay for a new bridge, he said.
Maybury said she and other town officials were planning to meet with officials from the state Department of Transportation in the near future to discuss who owns the land around the bridge and other issues.
