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From: steven D. Gatlin, Public Works Director To: steven Sarkozy, city Manager Re: WILLARD AND LOUISE GROVE, 1975 NORTH OXFORD STREET Date: March 16, 1992 In a memo to me last week, you asked several questions regarding the Grove matter. I will attempt to answer these as requested. 1. The city has other similar drainage easements covering occupied and developed residential properties. It is impossible to determine how many of these exist. We do not have a complete record of all public easements within the city. We have most records on plat maps, sections maps, or in our easement files. However, the city does not have a complete set of information for all areas. The Ramsey County surveyor and recorder are the agencies that are required to keep public records of all of these plats and easement documents. None of our records are all inclusive. As a matter of fact, the section maps do not routinely show easements if they have been dedicated as part of the original plat. Our section map for the Grove property did not show the underlining platted drainage easement. We routinely get three to five requests for similar action annually. We must vacate the easement if it was granted by a plat. If the easement was simply conveyed, a release is adequate. 2. When the city was requested to do so, we routinely vacated similar easements. Easement vacation is a planning process and requires notice to surrounding properties and a public hearing before the planning commission and the city council. The request must be made by the property owner. Historically, most of the requests have come from the property owners as part of their real estate transaction. Either the attorney for the buyer or seller or a title company has discovered an easement that needs to be vacated or released. We have not routinely vacated easements as a matter of practice. I can't think of any case where the city initiated the easement vacation process.