Whenever it becomes necessary for a town to take or damage private property for the purpose of establishing, laying out, extending, and widening streets and other public highways and places within the town, or for the purpose of rights-of-way for drains, sewers, and aqueducts, and for the purpose of widening, straightening, or diverting the channels of streams and the improvement of waterfronts, and the council cannot agree with the owner thereof as to the price to be paid, the council may direct proceedings to be taken under the general laws of the state to procure the same.