We have a private paved road in California that has 8 lots and 3 current houses on it. No argument that it’s all private on paper, but there’s a 200 yard dirt chute at one point - impassible in the wet - that can connect with a semi-public paved road and some of the locals with SUVs now find it convenient to use the road and the shortcut to get to the school. We put a permitted 16’ double gate at one end and try to leave half of it shut, but folks won’t take the hint and keep coming through in increasing numbers. We are exploring forming a road association and putting closers on the gate and getting codes or clickers. It’s pretty clear that all hell is going to break loose with the neighbors when we lock the gates and we’re looking for clues as to how others have dealt with this stuff legally and logistically. Can we choose who to sell a clicker to? Then can anyone demand one? What agreements are we looking for so we don’t give away an actual easement? How do we set a fee?
The gates and machinery alone will be around $5K and the hilly ridge road is 3/4 mile long and paved to 20’, so there will be annual maintenance there, as well as some kind of insurance against the rogue moron who gets through the gate and then drives off the edge and sues everyone. Since there are only 3 of us currently writing checks, it seems somehow unfair to have to carry the weight for the neighbors and then deal with their nonsense.
Are you positive you’re allowed to close it off? We have several private roads here in the MA community I live in, but they are legally open to the public and can’t be obstructed by the “owners.” Check with your municipality before you do anything expensive or permanent.
The road hits all 8 lots. A barrier might work eventually, but it’s 3/4 mile in from the main road and we’d get some serious speeding on the way out from people who found it close when they got there. I guess we want to let people know as soon as possible that they need to go another route.
As I said, it’s a permitted gate, approved by the County and Fire Department. We have to put a box on the gate that opens with the FD’s generic key.
No one currently has written easements here except the property owners.
I’m originally from MA and I’m puzzled as to how a “private” road can be “public.” Perhaps you mean it’s a private road but others have been granted easements or public access, like to a beach?
We have several private roads that are not owned by the city, are maintained by the owners but must legally remain open to the public. They simply run from point A to point B, and have houses on them. Some are dead ends but most are through streets. This is an urban environment. I wouldn’t be surprised if other municipalities have different laws, but there is no road here, private or public, that can be closed to the public unless it is 100% on a single property, like a driveway.
ETA - knowing the laws here, I was just worried you’d spend a lot of money installing something the local or state government might make you remove.
Forgot to include: If you have all your bases covered knowing you can legally do this… well… I have no advice on how to go about it but wish you lots of luck!
The MA roads, like New York private roads, are ones where title vests in the landowner and no duty of maintenance falls on the state, county or town, but the public is entitled to its right of way. This sounds more like New York’s abandoned roads, where a former road reverts to the landowners, and only those owning property along it have a right of passage on it. There is no doubt a way to create one of these from scratch, but I don’t know what it is.
It seems that the easiest method would be to barricade the chute where it intersects the road (concrete road divider, brush pile, big trench, guardrail, fence, whatever), along with signage at the entrance to your road that say ‘private road - no school access’ or similar. There are a lot of public roads around here that have ‘no xyz access’ signs where they split off from the main highway, to keep people from trying to cut across private property to get to the state park or the reservoir, etc.
You might get some angry speeders tearing out of there for the first month or two, but it should settle down quickly if you can keep the barricade in good repair. I know of one rural cutoff around here that had some putrescent deer carcasses piled up across it - it kept me from driving on it, and no way was I going to try and clear them out of the way…
There are plenty of private subdivisions in my area with closed gates. These gates require a clicker or access code. Their existence leads me to think that you could do the very same thing.
I’m not sure of all the particular details, but every home owner within the subdivision gets the access code, so that guests or repair folks can come in. City personnel also have the code.
Theoretically, you could tell anybody the code if you wanted to. I don’t think any private citizen non-lot-owner could legally demand it from you.
Have you thought about talking to an attorney? They could probably draw you up some papers to establish the Road Owners Association complete with fee schedule and rules.
I may be wrong but. If you are having non owners cross through the property you may be esttablishing a right of way. At one time if the property owners closed the gate and locked it once a year for a day it did not become a legal right of way.
But before spending money putting up a gate I would talk to a lawyer.
I’m thinking the fact that it’s permitted by some government agency that has the power to permit construction of such gates, coupled with the fact that the private road is being used to access a parcel of land not constructed or improved as a road is pretty a clear indicator that no public right of way exists.
