Homeowners on hook for street repair

[The Village Idiot]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/Homeowners_on_hook_for_road_repairs.html?showFullArticle=y



excerpt

Residents entering the Ventura Heights neighborhood weave between three massive, gaping potholes.

To spare car bumpers, they've placed sand, bricks and gravel at the base of their driveways, where the street has pulled away and left a foot-wide gap that's a breeding ground for weeds and wildflowers.

Despite the fact that their modest neighborhood of one- and two-story brick homes near Converse is just a few years old, the street repairs are expected to cost $1.3 million.

And thanks to their defunct developer, the homeowners have to pay for it themselves.

Ventura Heights' streets are among 77 miles of roadways located outside city limits that never have been accepted for maintenance by Bexar County.

Developer Obra Homes neither built the streets in Ventura Heights to the county's specifications nor completed the needed fixes — steps required before Bexar County will take over maintenance.

With Obra Homes out of business, homeowners are stuck with cracked and failing streets that appear decades older and technically are not public.

“We all have to drive around like it's a maze,” resident Victor Cruz said. “People are using sandbags to get into their driveways.”

Bexar County estimates it will cost $1.3 million to bring Ventura Heights' streets into compliance — $7,731.84 for each of the 170 homes.

It wants to use something called the road assessment program, a fix outlined in the state's transportation code for just this kind of situation. Under the program, the county would pay up front for the repairs, place a lien on each home and be paid back the lien amount when the home sells in the future.

It would be the first time in at least 15 years that the program's been used in Bexar County. But at least half of the homeowners would have to vote in favor of program, and so far it's not clear they will.

“It's not fair to make the rest of the taxpayers of Bexar County pay to repair those roads,” County Engineer Renee Green said.

Ventura Heights homeowners are, to say the least, not happy.

“They're putting it on us to fix the streets,” Cruz said. “We learned a lesson the hard way.”

Ventura Heights is the most dramatic example, but Green has a list of more than 60 developments in a similar situation. The developments all are outside city limits, not eligible for Bexar maintenance and most have road problems that have gone unfixed for more than two years as the county waits for developers to bring the streets into Bexar compliance

excerpt

[The Village Idiot]

Who owns this road?

[DefiantSix]

Who owns this road?

Legally, in most of the places I've been, the property owner does.  Technically, your property line extends out to the centerline of the road, and the road itself is a public easement through your property, and the adjacent properties.

[Wineslob]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


Yup. 

If it were me I'd just get :

[Chris_]

Legally, in most of the places I've been, the property owner does.  Technically, your property line extends out to the centerline of the road, and the road itself is a public easement through your property, and the adjacent properties.

Around here, when a subdivision is built, the developer owns the streets until the project is at least 50% completed, and then if the streets are built to the code that was specified in the developers origional planning and zoning approval, they are then "deeded" to the city or county, who then assumes the maintenance responsibility for them (ownership).

doc

[debk]

Around here, when a subdivision is built, the developer owns the streets until the project is at least 50% completed, and then if the streets are built to the code that was specified in the developers origional planning and zoning approval, they are then "deeded" to the city or county, who then assumes the maintenance responsibility for them (ownership).

doc

Same here.

City is responsible for upkeep if inside the city limits, county if outside. Only time the homeowners "own" it is if it's a gated subdivision, and technically it's the HOA that owns the streets.

Also, property line is at the curb, street is never included. There is usually a utility easement 6ft in from the curb or from the back lot line if utilities are in the rear of the property.

[The Village Idiot]

If the County Commission and a Judge both declare the homeowners owners of a private road, then they should run with it. Get a bank loan, fix the road, put on a gate, sew a flag and decare themselves seceded and then sell stamps and coins online to pay for it.

heh.

They could also give exclusive ice cream vending rights for a fee. heh

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

ahem...

(CNN) -- Their livelihood was being threatened, and they were tired of waiting for government help, so business owners and residents on Hawaii's Kauai island pulled together and completed a $4 million repair job to a state park -- for free.

Polihale State Park has been closed since severe flooding destroyed an access road to the park and damaged facilities in December.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources had estimated that the damage would cost $4 million to fix, money the agency doesn't have, according to a news release from department Chairwoman Laura Thielen.

"It would not have been open this summer, and it probably wouldn't be open next summer," said Bruce Pleas, a local surfer who helped organize the volunteers. "They said it would probably take two years. And with the way they are cutting funds, we felt like they'd never get the money to fix it."

And if the repairs weren't made, some business owners faced the possibility of having to shut down.

Ivan Slack, co-owner of Napali Kayak, said his company relies solely on revenue from kayak tours and needs the state park to be open to operate. The company jumped in and donated resources because it knew that without the repairs, Napali Kayak would be in financial trouble.

"If the park is not open, it would be extreme for us, to say the least," he said. "Bankruptcy would be imminent. How many years can you be expected to continue operating, owning 15-passenger vans, $2 million in insurance and a staff? For us, it was crucial, and our survival was dependent on it. That park is the key to the sheer survival of the business."

So Slack, other business owners and residents made the decision not to sit on their hands and wait for state money that many expected would never come. Instead, they pulled together machinery and manpower and hit the ground running March 23. Video Watch the volunteers repairing the road »
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And after only eight days, all of the repairs were done, Pleas said. It was a shockingly quick fix to a problem that may have taken much longer if they waited for state money to funnel in.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/09/hawaii.volunteers.repair/index.html

[JohnnyReb]

Around here you can't get a home loan until the streets are deeded over to the state, county or city. Sooooooo. most developments here have the roads deeded over to government before the first house is built.

But then recently there were the BIG developers that whooooshed into town, built a few hundred houses with out of state financing and then left town with the place in a mess like the one described......but it was a gated community and they own the roads that are washing out. So tough luck liberal democrat yankee escapees from the great blue states. Us rednecks ain't paying to fix your streets that we ain't allowed to drive on.

[NHSparky]

My first home was public streets but being part of an HOA, we were on the hook for maintenance and repair.  We resurfaced it once while I lived there.  Came right out of the fund.  These clowns could do a one-time assessment and pay for it for a few hundred bucks each, but nooooooo....