Who Owns the Road?
What is a right-of-way & where does my property end and town property begin?
The town owns and maintains the road that passes in front of your property unless you live on a private roadway. The road is a right-of-way which exists in one of two forms.
Right of Way Roads
The first is a presumptive right-of-way. Many old deeds on older roads describe property as being to the center of the road. In such cases, the town is given a right-of-way that gives rights to the town to maintain a road, what lies beside the road, and gives the public the use of the road. These rights-of-way are of varying widths and are not always measured from the center of the road! Many old deeds are quite ambiguous in their descriptions (“north-westerly to an oak tree” and “to the centerline of Old Milford Rd”). The oak tree might be long gone, and the centerline of the road might have moved to one side or another from its original positions due to construction, widening, or straightening of the road over the years. Thus, the right-of-way on these roads is generally taken to be from the center of the present road, or between two stone walls if they exist.
Town Owned Roads
On newer roads and properties, especially on roads in a subdivision, the property owner’s deed only goes to the edge of the right-of-way, and the land for the right-of-way is deeded to the town. Thus, the town not only owns the road, but also the land on which it’s built and surrounding areas of infrastructure (road shoulders & ditches). These deeded rights-of-way vary from 33 to 50 feet and sometimes wider.
Drainage Easements
Some properties may have a "drainage easement," a "slope and drainage easement," or another type of easement. While these lie on a residents private property, the easements give access to the town to work in them and maintain them. This type of work can include mowing brush and trees or reshaping the areas as needed. While many of these areas may seem useless most of the time, they are designed to accommodate larger, less frequent, storms thus they can only be relied upon if they have been kept in a state of readiness.
Summary
What is the point of all of this? Road construction and maintenance is not only limited to the paved or traveled surface. The work done to keep water off of, out of, and away from the roadway is done alongside the roadway within the overall right-of-way and any applicable easements. This work is vital to the structure of the roadway.
It is important that residents keep personal property and plants out of this right-of-way/town property/easements so these systems can work properly and maintenance work can be done as effectively and efficiently as possible for the improvement and protection of your road systems. While this work can sometimes be alarming, especially when working in a previously neglected area, we always aim to know where the lines exist to be mindful of personal property! Marking known property line corners is always a HUGE help in accomplishing the tasks of this department in the most efficient way possible.
Should you ever want to know where this line exists and can’t find it, please reach out to the public works department as we would be happy to assist!