Wilmington Selectmen Talk New Process For Privately-Owned Roads

WILMINGTON, MA — Wilmington selectmen discussed Tuesday a proposal to change the town process for taking ownership of private roads. The town has hundreds of "unaccepted" private ways and a limited ability to spend money on their maintenance and improvement. However, the current process for residents to turn them over to the town is too expensive, so town officials designed a new process.

In the current process, residents need to pay for the majority of the construction costs on unaccepted way. The proposed new process would be to have the residents pay the "soft costs" of establishing ownership, engineering, and other details regarding the way, so the town can legally take the road. Once they've done that, the town would be able to take the road, with a town meeting vote, and then pay for the "hard" construction costs, the larger part of the total cost. Town Engineer Paul Alunni and Planning and Conservation Director Valerie Gingrich explained the proposal.

Selectmen were not ready to vote on the proposal, and raised a number of concerns, particularly that the "soft costs" could still be a significant burden. Select board member Jomarie O'Mahoney, who lives on an "unaccepted way," pointed out that residents may have bought their homes without knowing the town doesn't own them.

"$2,800 or $28,000, that's still a burden to put on a resident to have a road be accepted by the town," she said. "I don't see how we're asking residents to pony up the money."

State Rep. David Robertson, who was in assistance, said he had written legislation to require realtors to disclose when a home is on an unaccepted way.

Another public commenter asked what would happen if land on the road was owned by the town. Town officials had not yet figured that out.

Unaccepted roads do get snow plow service, garbage collection, pothole repair, and other vital services, but the town cannot do major road reconstruction.

"We're trying to address this and we want to make sure we get it right for everybody," said Board Chair Greg Bendel. "We understand it's been frustrating for a long time."

Beyond the unaccepted way process, the board heard a variety of memos from the town manager and other officials, and voted on four issues.

Town Manager Jeffrey Hull said the town's "free cash" reserves increased to over $24 million in 2019, from $23.6 million last year. A set of reserved parking spots in the MBTA commuter rail parking lot, which should be reserved for retail parking, will have their signs updated making that clear. And the town received a grant for education on cybersecurity.

The board voted to have a warrant article created to name the library's outdoor seating area in honor of longtime library trustee and school committee member Peggy Kane. They also approved use of the town common for the Dec. 7, 4 to 7 p.m. tree lighting ceremony, and for signage ahead of the Festival of Trees that same weekend.

Finally, a new police dispatchers union contract for the next three years was approved, with slight cost of living increases and other modifications.

Christopher Huffaker can be reached at chris.huffaker@patch.com and 412-265-8353