In St. Anthony Park, an unusual brouhaha over lot lines ended Wednesday when the St. Paul City Council voted 5-1 to allow a husband and wife to buy vacant land from the library next door for nearly $30,000.

The Rev. Rick and Nancy Foss purchased the four-bedroom home in the 2200 block of Como Avenue in 2011, settling in next to St. Paul’s century-old St. Anthony Park Library.

What was supposed to be an uneventful relocation to a single-family home in walking distance of Luther Seminary — where Rick Foss once served as a director and interim president — has instead erupted into a public 2 1/2-year battle over a hilly spit of grassland.

From the start, the Fosses have paid property taxes on the 3,000 square feet of sloping property that sits between their home and the library, as did the homeowners before them. They cleared the land of brush and, in 2015, attempted to put up a privacy fence.

That’s when the city of St. Paul informed the Fosses that they were not the landowners — a surveyor hired by the city determined that, contrary to previous surveys in 1998 and 2001, the land in question has historically belonged to the Carnegie library, which sits on the National Register of Historic Places.

In other words, the land belongs to the city.

Months of sensitive neighborhood meetings with library leadership followed, including difficult discussions with the community gardeners who plant pollinator flowers downhill from the site. Many, though not all, of the gardeners have objected to the couple attempting to section off the land in question.

“The previous surveys we relied on when we purchased the home … (were) used by the city to build the library addition,” said Rick Foss, addressing the council on Wednesday. “We do not understand this. … We’ve been trying to upgrade and beautify the property. We’re trying to be good neighbors. I don’t think anyone would dispute that.”

On Wednesday, the St. Paul City Council held a public hearing on a compromise proposal that would have the Fosses purchase nearly 90 percent of the land from the city at the negotiated fair-market value of $28,900. The council then voted to support the deal, over the objection of Council Member Jane Prince. Council Member Dan Bostrom was absent.

“There might have been a possibility of finding a middle ground here,” Prince said.

In a March 1 letter to the city, the St. Anthony Park Community Council called the compromise a dud. “At this point, there is still considerable community concern and discord,” reads the letter. “The proposed resolution of the boundary was not negotiated with enough of the interested parties.”

The St. Anthony Park Garden Club has not taken an official position as an organization, but members of its Weekly Weeders have come out strongly against the new boundary and land sale. They’ve said the land in question could be better used as a public gathering space, educational resource and viewing area for their pollinator plantings.

Mary Maguire Lerman, former president of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society, said the land was donated to the city a century ago to build the Carnegie library, and should stay with the library.

“The city … needs to be a good neighbor and honor the donations of these past people,” she said, presenting a petition she said was signed by 170 neighborhood residents against the land sale.

Library Director Catherine Penkert told the council that rezoning and adjusting boundaries will take another 60 to 90 days, and proceeds from the land sale will benefit the library.