§ 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.