(a) Any and all costs associated with an alley closing that is vacated or is to be considered for vacation are to be the responsibility of the person or persons making the vacation request.
(b) No alley will be vacated, unless Council holds a hearing on the vacation issue at a regular or special meeting, and enacts an ordinance vacating the alley upon the following findings of fact:
(1) That there is good cause for the alley to be vacated; and
(2) That there will be no detriment to the general interest of the Village or its citizenry if the alley is closed; and
(3) That any and all public utilities, whether privately or governmentally owned or controlled, with easements in the alley to be vacated, shall retain permanent easements in the vacated alley; and
(4) That no lot owner will be impaired by the vacation order, and that any lot owner with a right of way or easement in the alley shall retain his right of way or easement in the vacated alley; and
(5) That the vacation should be made, recorded with the proper Preble County records by the person or persons making the vacation request, and proof of the recorded vacated alley be furnished to Council within thirty days of the effective date of the vacation order; if this step is not fulfilled by the person or persons making the request, the vacation order shall be null and void.
(c) Council shall not hold a hearing on an alley vacation issue until one of the following procedures have been followed:
(1) A petition by at least one person owning a lot in the Village praying that an alley in the immediate vicinity of such lot be vacated with a general description of the proposed alley to be vacated attached and a copy of the Preble County Auditor's plat map of the area attached, with such petition to be presented to Council, and notice of the pendency and prayer of the petition to be published in a newspaper published or of general circulation in the Village, for six consecutive weeks prior to the hearing date of the petition. While not required, reasons for the vacation of the alley should be presented with the petition; or
(2) Council, with signed
A. Written consents,
B. Written notice waivers, and
C. Written request for vacation from all abutting property owners to the alley to be vacated, presented before them, elects to hold a hearing on the alley vacation issue. Attachments to the request, as in subsection (c)(1) hereof are again mandatory.
(d) Where an alley is vacated by Council, the vacated alley shall revert to the abutting lot owners. subject, however, to any permanent easements of public utilities, and subject, to such rights as other property owners on the alley may have therein, by right of way or easement, as a necessary means of access to their property.
(e) Nothing in this section shall prevent Council from acting to close an alley, by legal means, on its own initiative and cost.
(Ord. 1983-4. Passed 6-7-83.)