A Small Detour

We are going down a different road today, pun fully intended. There is an article in today's East Valley Tribune that is talking about subdivision road upkeep, and I thought some of The Mister's insights might be enlightening for us all. First, the gist of the article:

At least 90 subdivisions in Gilbert are facing a “ticking time bomb” when it comes to their privately owned roads, town officials say.

The problem comes after several years of wear and tear start to show and residents start wondering when the town’s government is going to get around to fixing their streets. But in developments with private streets, residents or their homeowners associations are responsible for maintaining the roads.

And as these neighborhoods grow older, their deteriorating streets become a problem for the entire town. As a result, the problem has been dropped in the Town Council’s lap as Gilbert helps look for solutions.

“It’s a time bomb because, basically, these homeowners associations don’t know what the costs are,” Gilbert Town Manager George Pettit said.

For years, developers have pushed through projects with private streets that generally don’t meet local municipalities’ standards for size or quality.

The Town Council recently decided to require contractors who win road maintanence contracts to perform the same work for HOAs at the same price charged to the town.

“They’re still fully responsible for the cost,” Pettit said. “Except now they have a vendor that they can call that we know is credible, is licensed and bonded, and will be performing work at the contract rate.”

And for now, town officials say it’s the best they can do for private-street neighborhoods since the state constitution prohibits spending tax dollars on private projects.

The Mister explained to me that if you have a gated community, you have private streets. If the public is not allowed to use the streets, the public ought not pay for their maintenance. That makes sense. In some cases, there are communities that are not gated, yet have private streets for one reason or another. But wherever there are private streets and an HOA, there are supposed to be reserves to repair those streets down the road. It is conceivable that the developer used incorrect figures for the reserves, or that the figures needed to be revised upwardly as costs rose; but there is a mechanism in place to meet a need that is easily foreseen. The problem arises when an increase in HOA fees is required, and residents are opposed. The new laws enacted the last couple of years in AZ limit HOAs in their efforts to collect assessments, so if there are some recalcitrant homeowners, the burden ends up on the compliant homeowners.

And if you are wondering, this is a moot point for Morrison Ranch residents; all of our roads are public and maintained by the Town of Gilbert.