Blog · September 30, 2026
What Is a Reserve Strip?
A reserve strip is a thin strip of land the subdivider keeps at the edge of a plat, often to control who can extend the street or tap the utilities. It is a deliberate barrier. It is not an accident of drafting, and it is not a gore you may absorb.
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Why subdividers reserved a sliver
At the end of a street that stops on the boundary of the subdivision, the owner sometimes retained a one-foot strip, or a similarly thin strip, across the end. Anyone who later owned the land beyond had to deal with the subdivider to cross that strip and connect a road. The strip let the first developer control the extension and the standard of the connection. On the plat it may be labeled reserve, reserved strip, or a lot with a tiny dimension. The note may say it is reserved for future street purposes or that it is not dedicated. Those words are the point. The strip is private property of whoever holds title to it now, which may be the developer’s successor, a homeowners association, or the abutting lot if a later deed conveyed it.
How it blocks a plan you can see on a photo
Aerial photos show the pavement ending and the next field beginning, and they do not show a one-foot title barrier. A buyer of the back land who sketches a road connection from the photo will run into the strip at the recorder’s office. County GIS may paint the strip as part of the street, as its own parcel, or not at all. None of those drawings conveys it. Platbookmapper links to the GIS and does not erase reserve strips. If you need access, you need a deed, an easement, or a dedication from the current owner of the strip, plus whatever public approval the road connection requires. Driving across it because it looks unused does not create that easement. Measuring it with a wheel does not merge it into the street.
How to recognize one in the dimensions
Look for a dimension of one foot, two feet, or a few feet at the terminus of a dedicated street, with a separate lot number or the word reserve. Compare the dedication clause. If the street is dedicated except the reserve strip, the exception is doing real work. A later replat may release the strip. Search forward. If you own the lot in front of it, you do not own the strip unless your deed includes it. Do not move your fence to the far side. Do not dig up a monument to see if the strip is real. The plat dimension is enough to warn you, and a surveyor can mark it if a design depends on crossing it.
What to do next
- Scan street ends for a thin dimension or the word reserve.
- Read whether the dedication excepts that strip.
- Find the current owner in the deeds, not from the aerial.
- Get a recorded grant before you plan a connection across it.
The mix-up to avoid
Treating a one-foot gap at the end of the pavement as a surveying error and connecting the road anyway. The gap is often the reserve strip, and it was drawn because the developer refused exactly that connection.
Questions people ask
Is a reserve strip the same as a spite strip?
They look alike and the motives overlap. Spite strip is the sharper word for a strip kept to injure a neighbor. Reserve strip is the planning word for a strip kept to control extension. The reading task is the same: it is a separate parcel or reserved fee, and you do not cross it by assumption.
Can the city force the strip open?
Sometimes, through roads powers or condemnation, and sometimes not. That is a legal and political process. It is not a conclusion from the fact that the GIS shows a dashed future road.
Find the county map
The county GIS map is the practical place to start. Find it from the Platbookmapper directory, then treat the recorded plat and deed as the documents behind the picture.
Not a survey. County GIS and tax parcel maps are assessment and planning layers. They are not a substitute for a recorded plat, deed, or licensed survey.