Surfside residents support road takings

PHOTO BY PETER B. BRACE Monohansett Road is deeply rutted and full of potholes and is one of the roads that Surfside residents are urging the town to take and make a public road. Surfside residents now have the Board of Selectmen's attention for the town to take and rebuild four of their notoriously broken down private roads.

Of the roughly 45 people who attended the selectmen's public information session on road takings on Monday afternoon, nearly all raised their hands when Selectmen chairman Michael Kopko asked how many residents would grant the town permanent easements — its preferred road acquisition protocol — to their sections of these roadways.

However, that cooperation must also extend to their wallets when it comes to rebuilding the Boulevarde, Lovers Lane, Okorwaw Avenue and Monohansett Road into public roads, the number one priority of the recently completed and accepted Surfside Area Plan.

"I'm pretty sure that whatever solution is arrived at will involve the residents of the area," said Kopko. "I expect that any kind of meaningful solution to the issue would involve some kind of sharing of costs between the residents and the taxpayers."

Taking and reconstruction of these roads will not come cheaply, especially since the town does not have the money right now to take the roads and repair them. For a private road built by a developer, as is the case with many roads in the Surfside area, the county needs to lay it out and get voluntary, permanent easements from property owners along the road, who each own an interest in the road to its center line. The county then accepts the easements as gifts or if the easements are not given, engages its taking procedure to acquire public access to the road.

"We need to be prepared as a county to fund the taking of the roads and repair them," added town manager Libby Gibson. "We do not currently have the funds to take them."

Without or with limited cooperation of property owners on a given road, the town estimates that it would cost around $100,000 to make it officially public and eligible for maintenance by the Department of Public Works. Estimates for reconstruction of these roads including brush cutting, grinding of existing surfaces and new asphalt paving come to:

$347,544 for the Boulevarde, $248,230 for Okorwaw Avenue, $99,585 for Lovers Lane,

$347,568 for Monohansett Road.

When the board members and Gibson mentioned money, excited, cooperative comments from Surfside shifted into the cautious gear, as some felt the financial burden should be shouldered by all islanders since so many drivers use these roads as a short cut to and from the airport.

"If there's going to be a [betterment assessed] on the citizens, then it should fall equally across the island, all the town's citizens, as they are, for all intents and purposes, public roads," said Terry Straub of 37 Pochick Ave.

While others feared that the sale of vacant lots that could help fund the takings facilitated by Articles 78 and 79, adopted at Town Meeting in April would degrade their neighborhoods despite the possibility of providing year-round housing options for year-round residents.

"One of the reasons we're there is the rural character of Surfside and one of things we want to do is preserve that rural character," said Bill Gartland of 22 Woodbine St. "I really think probably something needs to be done about the condition of these roads, but I would be really concerned about the selling of open space."

And still others agreed that some sort of betterment should be set just for Surfside residents only.

Surfside Association president Tom Quigley pledged his members' support for the effort, including manpower and knocking on doors.

Maureen Beck of 9 Uncatena shared Quigley's sentiments.

"I would hope that we could erase political will from our minds and look at this as a structural need for the entire island," said Beck.

As the selectmen are just starting the process of road takings in Surfside, no decisions were made at this meeting. I