N.Y. Railroad Law § 171: Consent of property owners and local authorities

§ 171. Consent of property owners and local authorities. A street

surface railroad, or extensions or branches thereof, shall not be built,

extended or operated unless the consent in writing acknowledged or

proved as are deeds entitled to be recorded, of the owners in cities and

villages of one-half in value, and in towns, not within the corporate

limits of a city or village, of the owners of two-thirds in value, of

the property bounded on and also the consent of the local authorities

having control of that portion of a street or highway upon which it is

proposed to build or operate such railroad, extension or branch shall

have been first obtained. Such consents of property owners in the county

of Kings which shall be hereafter executed, may be forfeited unless

within sixty days after the execution thereof, the same shall be

recorded in the office of the register of such county. Such register is

hereby directed upon the payment of the proper fees to record all

consents left with him for that purpose in books to be provided by him

and paid for out of the funds provided to meet the expenses of said

office. Such books shall be indexed according to the names of the

consenting property owners and also according to the names of the

streets, roads or other highways upon which the property to which the

consent relates shall be bounded. In case the recording of such consents

shall be hindered, delayed or prevented by legal proceedings in any

court or from any other or different cause not within the control of the

corporation upon which such requirement is imposed, the time for the

performance of such act is hereby and shall be deemed to be extended for

the period covered by such hindrance, delay or prevention. The consents

of property owners in one city, village or town, or in any other civil

division of the state, shall not be of any effect in any other city,

village or town or other civil divisions of the state. Consents of

property owners heretofore obtained to the building, extending,

operating or change of motive power shall be effectual for the purposes

herein mentioned and may be deemed to be sufficiently proved and shall

be entitled to be recorded, wherever such consents shall have been

signed, executed or acknowledged before an officer authorized by law to

take acknowledgments of deeds, or before or in the presence of a

subscribing witness, and without regard to whether or not the

subscribing witness shall have affixed his signature in the presence of

the subscriber, provided that the proof of such signing, execution or

acknowledgment shall have been made by such subscribing witness in the

manner prescribed by section three hundred and four of the real property

law. In cities the common council, acting subject to the power now

possessed by the mayor to veto ordinances; in villages the board of

trustees; and in towns the superintendent of highways and the town board

shall be the local authorities referred to, except that in villages

where the control of the streets is vested in any other board or

authorities, such other board or authorities shall be the local

authorities referred to, and the consent of such other board or

authorities hereafter or heretofore obtained shall be sufficient; if in

any city or county the exclusive control of any street, avenue or other

property which is to be used or occupied by any such railroad, extension

or branch, is vested in any other authority, the consent of such

authority shall also be first obtained. The value of the property above

specified shall be ascertained and determined by the assessment-roll of

the city, village or town in which it is situated, completed last before

the local authorities shall have given their consent, except property

owned by such city, village or town, or by the state of New York, or the

United States of America, the value of which shall be ascertained and

determined by making the value thereof to be the same as is shown by

such assessment-roll to be the value of the equivalent in size and

frontage of the adjacent property on the same street or highway; and the

consent of the local authorities shall operate as consent of such city,

village or town as the owners of such property. Whenever heretofore or

hereafter a railroad has been or shall be constructed and put in

operation for one year or the motive power thereof has been or shall be

changed and put in operation for a similar length of time, such facts

shall be presumptive evidence that the requisite consents of local

authorities, property owners and other authority to the construction,

maintenance and operation of such railroad or change of motive power

have been duly obtained. No consent of local authorities given prior to

May second, nineteen hundred and one, shall be deemed invalid because of

any portion of the road or route consented to not being connected with

an existing road or route of the corporation obtaining or acquiring such

consent and all statements of extension filed under section one hundred

and seventy of this article in reference to the route or part thereof

described in any consent of local authorities are hereby ratified and

confirmed, whether the same were filed before or after the obtaining or

acquiring of such consents, provided, however, that nothing herein

contained shall be construed to affect any portion of a street surface

railroad which is now in or upon any portion of a street which is under

the jurisdiction of a park department in any city containing a

population of over twelve hundred thousand inhabitants.