N.Y. Highway Law § 131-f: Streets outside cities

§ 131-f. Streets outside cities. When any territory in a county

containing an incorporated city of one hundred thousand inhabitants or

upward, lying outside the limits of such city, has been mapped into

streets and avenues pursuant to law, the board of supervisors may

authorize the establishment of a plan for the grade of such streets and

avenues; the alteration of such plan of grades, or of any plan thereof

that shall have been established by law; the laying out, opening,

grading, constructing, closing and change of line or width, of any one

or more of them, and provide for the assessment on property intended to

be benefited thereby, and fixing assessment districts therefor, and for

the levy, collection and payment of the amount of damages sustained and

the charges and expenses incurred, or which may be necessary to incur in

carrying out such provisions; the laying out of new or additional

streets and avenues upon the established map or plan thereof, the

acceptance by town officers of conveyances of lands, for public

highways, the naming and changing of names of streets and avenues laid

down on said map or plan, and the numbering or renumbering of houses and

building lots fronting on such streets and avenues. But such last named

power in regard to the alteration of said map or plan, laying out,

opening, grading, constructing, closing and change of line, of such

streets or avenues, or the numbering or naming thereof, or defraying the

expenses thereof, shall only be exercised on the petition of the

property owners, who own more than one-half of the frontage on any such

street or avenue, or on a certificate of the town board and

commissioners of highways of the town, that the same is, in their

judgment, proper and necessary for the public interest. If the streets

and avenues in respect to which such action is proposed to be taken,

shall lie in two or more towns, a like certificate shall be required of

the town board and commissioners of highways, of each town. Before

making such certificate, such town board, or boards and commissioners of

highways, shall give ten days' notice by publication in one of the daily

papers of the county, and by conspicuously posting in six public places

in each of such towns, of the time and place at which they will meet to

consider the same, at which meeting the public, and all persons

interested, may appear and be heard in relation thereto. No such street

or avenue shall be laid out, opened or constructed, upon or across any

lands acquired by the right of eminent domain, and held in fee for depot

purposes by any railroad corporation, or upon or across any lands now

held by a corporation formed for the purpose of improving the breed of

horses, without the consent of such corporations. No town officer shall

charge anything for his services under this section, nor shall any

charge be made against any such town or the property therein, for the

expense of the publication of the notice herein required.