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emansius

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I like it.  I wish they were utilizing the alley though.  Is the city restricting use of and access to alleyways?  Seems like they could make the parkwood facing units accessible from the alley,  cut off their drives off from the parking lot. and pick up three or four spaces.

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Alley's are really tough in Charlotte.

The city will not enforce any encroachment or blocking of an alley.

It's actually a civil matter if there is access disagreement....so, again, no enforcement.

No developer will rely on alley access.  The best hope is to petition to close an alley, which would allow a property owner to acquire it and then privately maintain it, but you need consent of adjoining property owners, so not always feesible.

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Regarding alleys in these older neighborhoods, they were often designated in deeds as a common use for adjoining property owners for access to rear of property(ies). The most common use of the alleys was for trash collection. Until the early 90's (?) rubbish was collected by rubbish men rolling their bin to the rear of the dwelling, emptying the bin of the resident into their wheeled bin and rolling it out to the street to go into the truck. Alleys made this possible. In these same neighborhoods deliveries were made to the back door, maids entered by the rear door and alleys allowed this also. Coal and fuel oil, same. Only guests came through the front door. Once all these things were no longer part of life the alleys could sometimes become overgrown and difficult to determine that they were actually an alley.

My Dilworth house had a 10 foot wide alley along one side and a 12 foot wide alley on the rear. The rear alley was never used at any time, it simply appeared on a survey and not in actual fact. The side alley allowed motor access to the rear of the property and was a constant issue with the adjoining property owner until I bought the adjoining property. This is rarely an option.

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One of CDOT's ideas for the Parkwood/Plaza redesign was t9 make that alley corridor parallel to Parkwood into a bike trail.

This would Def scrap that as a possibility in the duties unless the owner concerted those spots into parallel parking to make room for a trail.... (if thr idea had any traction, that is)

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^^^This is all great information thanks.  I live on one of the gridded streets in Plaza-Midwood.  We all have 10' alleys at the rear of our properties.  They all "T" into alleys that parrallel Belvedere.  We have established a "policy" for the neighborhood association to oppose the abandonment of alleys  in order to maintain them for public use.  I did not realize the city did not enforce encroachment.

Our neighbors use their alleys for all sorts of things.  To me the most beneficial result of the alleys are utility wire rights of way.  Most of our streets are tree lined and tree covered, because our power lines all run behind our houses.

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I know not of other neighborhoods but in the original Dilworth area the alleys were deeded to individual property owners with words such as "property including a 10 (ten) foot wide alleyway along the north side of said property but restricted by use of all owners in said block, in common, for egress, ingress..." or some such words. A serious restriction of use. Utility easements were common, of course. A title insurance specialist who had researched this told me had found that the original electrical utility in the alleys came after the older lots in Dilworth and the power company easements were never added to deeds since the coming of electricity was such an unalloyed good that no one could imagine resisting such a thing. I know that my deed from 1905 had no such easement mentioned. After 100 years of utility use Duke could not be forced to move poles.

City lot maps may show property ending at the alley as if it were with no ownership by the adjoining property owner but, as always, refer to your deed, deed history, and survey which always rules, except for such open and notorious use as the Duke service lines.

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19 minutes ago, Desert Power said:

Any rumors one what is going to fill that 24th street retail yet?  Looks like one of the spots is going to be a dentist of some type.

Pho, Fitness Studio, and a Dentist Office.

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