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Maine Alliance for Road Associations

Petition the town

  • 23 Sep 2020 1:26 PM
    Message # 9260031

    Our road association has only two roads within our subdivision, with a combined length of one and a half miles. The two roads appear as a continuous loop which rejoins itself (similar the lower-case letter ā€œdā€).  The upper portion of the primary road is a dead end with a turnaround. Property owners on both roads pay equal  road association assessments.

    The subdivision developer did not complete the roads to comply with the town road ordinances. Now, as a road association we must complete the roads to comply with the town ordinance, probably an expensive project.  Then we must petition the town to accept the roads as town maintained.

    When we prepare the petition and present it to the town, is it possible to exclude one of the roads within the subdivision and ask the town to only accept one road? 


  • 25 Sep 2020 10:20 AM
    Reply # 9264426 on 9260031
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

    As far as legality goes, I don't think there is any reason you can't limit what you petition the town to take over any way you want.  But bear in mind that if the people on the "unaccepted" portion are not in agreement with being excluded, that could raise problems.

    My biggest concern, however, is whether or not the Town is likely to actually accept the road.  With the increasing costs of road maintenance and the strain that places on town budgets, many towns now have a policy of not accepting new roads unless they are first brought up to standard, as you mention.  Other towns have a policy of not accepting ANY new roads, even if they are brought up to full town standard first. 

    To add even more uncertainty, if your town has the town meeting form of government, the acceptance has to be approved by a vote of the townspeople.  If they think it will increase their taxes, there's a good chance they will vote against it, even if the Selectmen have led you to believe that it's just a formality once the road meets the required standard. 

    Your chances are slightly better if properties on your road contribute a substantial amount to the town tax base, (for example if there are many high-priced houses or many shorefront lots,) and you can argue that you are getting virtually nothing in return.  I like to call it "mining taxes," as it gains the town a lot of money that it can spend elsewhere in town instead of putting it back into the road that generated it.

    Bottom line - before putting a lot of money into improving the road, you need to carefully consider the chances of the road actually getting taken over by the Town.  It might be more productive to try to track down the subdivider and demand that he finish what he started.

  • 26 Sep 2020 6:12 AM
    Reply # 9266147 on 9260031

    I very much appreciate your reply to my post.  Our statutory road association was newly formed on Sept 1st, previously having been an adhoc road association for over 4 years. The previous adhoc style association was simply to have a means to have our roads plowed during the winter months and to do minor maintenance during the summer months.  Now the new statutory association intends to build the roads to comply with the town road ordinances, which will undoubtedly be very expensive, instead of our property owners requiring the developer to complete the roads as required by the town ordinance.

    Our bylaws are based on a lakeshore association which is a permanent statutory road association. Our subdivision has no waterfront or shoreline.  Our road association will most-likely be dissolved when and if the town accepts the roads. A proposal was made to revise/amend the bylaws to better reflect the needs of our subdivision, a temporary road association. That proposal was voted down without discussion. 

    Our town does have a town meeting form of government and two of the selectmen own property in our subdivision. In my opinion, we are being "led down the road" with little or no chance of getting the roads accepted by the town.  

    The "bottom line" in your reply to my post was so well stated.  

    I look forward to the annual meeting of MARA. 


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