(Orleans)– The Orleans City Council has decided to sell a public access on the southeast side of Big Spirit Lake. The action followed a recent public hearing. Mayor Bill Maas says the city had received a $250,000 offer on the parcel. He says it isn’t buildable because of the shallow nature of its layout. He says there’s also an easement for a storm sewer that runs through the middle of it. Maas says the access is located between two homes…
“One of the houses built many, many years ago before anybody was paying too much attention to lot lines and stuff actually sits five and-a-half feet over on the city property and is probably not the ideal situation to ask somebody to take a giant saw and cut off five and-a-half feet of a house. And as this lot does not have a whole lot of utility value the city decided that with the offer being made and the availability to be able to improve upon our other public accesses that that might be the best way to go.”
Maas says the city intends to use the proceeds from the sale to improve some other accesses…
“We figured that that would be the fair way to do things and that way the public doesn’t come out on the short end of the stick so to speak because that money will be used to improve things for the general public.”
Maas admits the disposal of public accesses around the Iowa Great Lakes is highly controversial but he says in this particular case the council thought it was the right thing to do.
