Unless it is a public easement.
It all depends. If the public has been using it, and the Church owns it, the church may have ceded Public Right of Way anyway. ymmv, ianal.
Not if the Public has acquired a easement by use. Ask a lawyer.
In most states if it is blocked one a year for 24 hours the owner has not granted an easement by use.
Maybe. but ianal, and i dont think you are one either, and yes, it does vary state by state.
Just a life experience years ago.
Unless its got an easement on the title for the land the road is on… Basically it means the land is owned by anyone, but the easement says the land is a public thoroughfare.
Easements mean that if the easement is removed, then the land can be used as regular private land. But the easement has special conditions. eg you let the government do what it likes with the public thoroughfare. Or you don’t build substantial (definition ?) over a utility installed in the ground. Or you don’t build anything there just because its near something else. (the utility might be just outside , and they need access to their utility to make repairs ? )
Or easements for drainage, so that you don’t dam up a drainage system and cause a flood.
Some easements are just for the the driveway to your neighbours… that you have to let them through.
Anyway, the situation is that the county probably controls whether it is or isn’t a usable public road. But it may be that the road was there before but now its private land with no easement.
walked the road today and did not see any visible problems to my untrained eye. Funny thing , somebody knocked the barriers down at one end of the road. I will call the town tomorrow to see what they say about it.
Closed due to legal dispute. From the town:
There is a legal dispute between the two private parties that must sign the easement plat to dedicate the public Right of Way (ROW) for the road. Until they resolve their differences and record the ROW then the road is on private property and does not belong to Cary. The road is closed because one or both owners have it closed to limit their personal liability should an accident happen while people are on private property not in the ROW.
and 1 year later the road is still not open. They did remove more dirt from the slope on 1 side of the road which I thought would allow them to open it but it’s still closed. Either the church or the land owner on the other side must be refusing to sign off or maybe they refuse to pay for something.
Maybe one of those land owners doesn’t WANT it to be a public road. You aren’t usually required to ceded your rights to land just because you allowed a road to be built on it.
Sidebar:
A Word Of Warning–not all signs in parking lots are legal. Many years ago, I got a ticket for an illegal left turn into a shopping center parking lot. There was no traffic in any direction, including the parking lot. Except the cop parked just behind the building obviously waiting for just such an occasion. Court date comes, I’m going to explain the traffic situation to the judge and throw myself on the mercy of the Court. Turns out 5 or 6 of us are there for the same infraction and we’re being heard one after the other, I assume so the cop can get back to work. The first two are found guilty, assessed fines and possibly points. Contestant #3 produces an official document declaring the “traffic device” (the left turn sign) is illegal–put there by the shopping center! It’s on the wrong side of the road, it’s at the wrong height, other illegalities. #3 is acquitted. I’m #4. “Yer Honor, what he said!” Case dismissed. I high-tail it in case someone changes their mind. I approach the cop, in the lobby, and ask him what happens to the first two defendants who were found guilty of no offense. Not my problem! he says, hurrying to give out more tix until they can take down that Traffic Device. I call after him, Shouldn’t you know which TDs are official? Shouldn’t the shopping center get a ticket for an illegal left-turn sign? He’s all-of-a-sudden gone deaf. Sad.
TL;DR–do not trust all traffic signs.
Interesting as always to see the differences. Private developers build roads all the time and in 99% of cases, they want the Local Authority to ‘adopt’ them. Once adopted the road becomes a public highway (although a private road can be a public highway too) and the LA has to maintain it. It is not unusual for an LA to refuse to adopt a road unless and until it is bought up to standard.
We have all kinds of road signs on private car parks and many of them do not meet the required standard. In fact, a cop cannot issue a ticket for ignoring one, even if it is ‘good’. It would be different if you were involved in a collision making that left/right turn though as the insurance company would surely make you 100% to blame, even if the sign was too low/too small etc.
And if the owner isn’t going to budge, the government would have to go the route of eminent domain to take an easement if they really wanted the public road. That does require a public court hearing and a lot of expense.
And as bob++ points out, the local government may not have any real interest in taking over the maintenance of the road, and might be perfectly happy to leave it in private hands.
from what they told me the town plans to take it over once the 2 owners sign off. Clearly they are in no hurry to sign.
If I understand the sequence of events correctly, the government body (City, Town or County) spent public funds to build a road on property that’s privately owned. And after discovering that problem, now is trying to get waivers from the landowners. Is that close to correct?
If that’s correct, some public official should now be gainfully unemployed AND the government body should be taking the land by eminent domain rather than wasting time.
Just my 2 cents - take it for what it’s worth!
Don’t know what the law is in NC; but in NY, if the Town/County/Whatever municipality spent money to build a road on private land, whoever in the Town made those decisions would definitely be in trouble.
However it’s possible that the church built the road assuming the town would take it over once built. That’s a common arrangement in NY and probably elsewhere; but at least in NY the municipality’s not required to take roads over just because somebody built them, and may in fact be barred from doing so if the road doesn’t meet minimum standards, some of which are set by the state, not by the municipality. (My town gets repeated requests to take roads over from people on narrow steep private roads leading to the lake which don’t meet the minimum standard for right-of-way. No can do, even if they wanted to; the state says that’s not legal.)
It wouldn’t be the first time that one party either assumed their neighbor would go along with something, or assumed the other party could be forced into line; but such assumptions often don’t work out well for those who make them.
I still don’t understand why the OP thinks that a court order is required to close a road.
the road was built at the same time the church next to the road built a new building. Which makes me think the church also paid to build the road for access to their property. The church has another entrance they are using now so I guess that might be why they are not in a hurry to sign off. The land on the other side of the road is vacant now so that owner may not be in a big hurry to sign as well.
just in case anyone is interested , this is the church https://www.raleighccc.org/main/