(Guthrie Center) The Guthrie County Board of Supervisors discussed vacating the north-south portion of Roost Lane at their meeting Tuesday.
Ben Hayes, Brad Hayes along with each of their attorneys and Mark Van Houten all called into the meeting. Brad Hayes and Mark Van Houten both own land abutting Roost Lane and had both filed objections to vacating the roadway.
Deputy Auditor Danielle Fink explained that this process actually started back in 2017. Prior to 2017, the County thought that this portion of Roost Lane was private property and so nothing was done with it.
“At the request of Mark Van Houten at the time they shaped and rocked the road and then said they would look at vacating it at a later date. Well, they never got around to it and so this just recently got brought back up. Now, Mark Van Houten is living in a house and the only access to his property is via this road, so if the road is vacated it’s going to go back to the original landowner which is actually a Mrs. Finnegan and she owns the property on the east section of this road,” explained Fink.
That would result in Mark Van Houten and Brad Hayes losing access to their properties.
After some discussion, Mike Dickson made a motion to vacate this portion of Roost Lane and Jack Lloyd seconded. The motion failed to pass after J.D. Kuster, Everett Grasty and Clifford Carney voted Nay. Clifford Carney then asked that an option be brought forth to classify the road as Class B which means that the county would do the minimum amount of work to the road. No decision was made, but that will be the next option that will be discussed.
