Milton City Council Debates Revision to Road Privatization Policy

When a road becomes privatized the city stops paying for the upkeep and thereby makes it the personal responsibility of the residents.

While still required to maintain city code standards, residents would have the freedom to pave roads more often, install speed bumps to control unwanted traffic and much more.

Currently, Milton requires a 100 percent approval from residents in a subdivision for privatization to be approved. City Council is considering revising those numbers, but are undecided on specifics.

According to Public Works Director Carter Lucas, there are certain things that need to be considered from a legal standpoint when discussing street abandonment. One is to remember that streets belong to the general as well as the local public.

“When the roadway is dedicated to the city it becomes the property of the city as an asset to everyone in the city and the general public at large not necessarily just to the subdivision or the location of where the street was created. So we have to look at it from an overall standpoint and not just from a particular subdivision standpoint,” said Lucas.

Lucas say that one of two things has to be proven to consider abandonment: “That no substantial public purpose is served by that section or that its removal from the municipal street system is otherwise in the best public interest,” he said.

Many residents in Milton’s Crooked Creek Community are in favor of road privatization. In 2008, the community’s Home Owners Association presented a proposal to residents to take control of their roads from the city of Milton and an overwhelming majority of voted in favor of doing so. However, nothing can move forward until the city agrees to revise the current policy.

To maintain a privatized road, home owner association dues would have to go up, but Crooked Creek resident Michael Stevens said that wouldn’t be a problem in Crooked Creek because with 640 homes and about seven miles of roads to maintain, it would cost about one dollar a day.

“The city benefits by privatizing,” said Stevens. “They’re losing an expense and it gives power to the community.”

Fellow resident Laura Wysong agrees that is would be in everyone's best interest if city counsel were to be more lenient on their policy regarding privatization.

“They are allowing it’s constituency to do what it sees fit for its community,” Wysong said.