Date: Fri 02-Feb-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Pootatuck-Park-roads-private

Full Text:

w/photos: Storm Erodes Confidence In Lake Community Roads

B Y K AAREN V ALENTA

Major storm damage to roads in Pootatuck Park has rekindled the controversy

over the town's responsibility to maintain private roads.

Heavy rain last Saturday, combined with melting snow, caused severe damage to

Edgelake Drive, Elmwood Trail, Maplewood Trail and Brook Bridge Drive in the

riverside community. Parked cars were left precariously dangling over

cavernous holes. Muddy water washed into basements and across lawns, leaving

piles of silt and stones.

"It was a severe storm that caused tremendous damage," complained Richard

Hamann of Edgelake Drive. "In one case water went into a basement door and out

the front door of the house. There were five to six yards of silt on lawns."

"My neighbor drove a car into a four-foot-deep hole," said John Miller of

Elmwood Trail. "The water washed out Maplewood Drive. My brother and I worked

until 1 am (Sunday) trying to clean up the mess."

Public Works Director Fred Hurley said silt from the dirt roads washed into

catch basins, filling them and clogging the drainage system that is supposed

to carry water away from the roads. With no place else to go, the water washed

down the roads, creating huge potholes and gulleys and spilling across lawns.

"This amount of water was extraordinary - I've never seen anything like it,"

Mr Hurley said. "It absolutely destroyed the roads with cars on them."

Mr Hurley said eight highway department workers worked most of the night

Saturday, until about 5:30 am on Sunday, at a cost of nearly $2,000 in

overtime, plus $4,000 to $5,000 in fill to repair the roads.

"We had trucks hauling the fill, a loader and a backhoe and a grader up

there," he said. "We also used a VacAll, which is a piece of sewer cleaning

equipment, to blow out the drainage pipes."

The town spends anywhere from $75,000 to $100,000 a year to maintain the dirt

roads in Pootatuck Park, he said. Paving the four roads that repeatedly get

the most damage would require about $20,000 to $30,000 worth of cold mix

asphalt and could significantly reduce most of the maintenance problem, he

said.

Private Road Issue

The roads in Pootatuck Park are private roads. Under a road ordinance approved

at a town meeting in 1968, the town agreed to plow and maintain private roads

enough to make them passable for fire trucks, police cars and other emergency

vehicles. If road improvements, such as paving, were needed, the property

owners would pay for half of the cost of the materials; the town would supply

the labor. At the same time, the properties - previously considered summer

cottages and taxed at a reduced rate - began to be taxed at the same rate as

other residences in town.

Pootatuck Park residents came to the Board of Selectmen's budget workshop on

Monday night to talk about the storm damage and ask the town to do something

in next year's budget to help improve their roads.

"It's an ongoing situation with the same problems every year," Mr Hamann said.

"The highway department did a fantastic job fixing the problem last weekend

but they can only do so much. The town grader is up here 15 to 20 times a

year. I don't understand the logic of putting a Band-Aid on the problem, of

sending a grader instead of paving the roads."

Mr Hamann said the town should take over the roads in Pootatuck Park, make

them public and pave them. Lynn Knapp of Edgelake Drive agreed.

"Tax dollars are being wasted," she said. "Until 1968 we paid a lower tax rate

because we are on a private road but now we pay the same as everyone else.

What if there was an emergency during this storm? You couldn't get help into

our neighborhood. We face a potential crisis situation every time

three-fourths of an inch of rain falls."

Mrs Knapp said that paving the roads would pay for itself in just a few years

with reduced maintenance costs. "The town proved that when Dock Drive and

Waterview Drive were paved a few years ago," she said. "The town could save a

whole lot of money by spending a little. That's cost-efficient."

First Selectman Bob Cascella said that bringing the private roads in Pootatuck

Park into the town's road system, in effect making them public roads, would

not solve the problem.

"If we accepted all the roads in Pootatuck Park as public roads, we still

wouldn't have the money to fix them," he said. "Major roads - those which

carry the most traffic in town - must be done first. There are many public

roads which are in poor shape and have been for years."

The selectmen admitted that maintaining dirt roads is more expensive than

maintaining paved roads. But many property owners don't want their roads to be

paved and some have even organized protests to protect what they say is their

"country lifestyle."

The town has about 20 miles of private roads. Most are substandard, many

cannot be improved at a reasonable cost and the town does not want the

liability of owning them, Mr Cascella said.

"The town unfortunately set a precedent 20 years ago when it agreed to

maintain private roads," he said. "Other towns simply do not do this. When I

first took office, I suggested that all roads be brought into the town road

system and I ran into so much opposition from both sides."

"It would cost $50-$60 million to bring all our roads up to a `C' (average)

condition," Mr Cascella said. "The past few years we have been committing

$1-$2 million per year for capital road projects."

Selectman Gary Fetzer pointed out that Newtown is the fourth largest community

in the state in terms of miles of roads "but we don't have the fourth largest

population to support the cost of maintaining and improving these roads."

Property Owners Pay

If the Pootatuck Park residents paid for part of the cost of improving their

roads, they probably have a better chance of getting their roads improved than

people who live on public roads, he said. And, once a private road is paved

and in good condition, it is more likely to be accepted into the town road

system as a public road, he added.

Some lakeside communities have active homeowner groups which set aside money

regularly for road improvements. Others, such as Pootatuck Park, do not. But

the residents who attended the selectmen's meeting said they planned to get

together and try to raise the money needed to help pay for half of the

materials.

"If you do this, I will support it and recommend it to the Board of Selectmen

and the Legislative Council," Mr Cascella said.

Mr Cascella said the project might have to be done in two phases, first the

drainage work, then paving later.

"Your financial constraints, and the town's, might require it," he said.

"If that's what we have to do, we will do it," said Greg Franzino who owns two

properties on Edgelake Drive. "We need help desperately. Another few years and

our roads will be impassable."

As part of the budget deliberations which followed the public participation

portion of the meeting, the selectmen voted to increase the amount of money

set aside for work on private roads from $3,000 in the current budget to

$10,000 in the 1996-97 budget.