Here’s a great meandering story that unfolded over the weekend in my neighborhood.
There are 367 private roads in Newton and they are very strange legal beasts. The city has no legal responsibility for the upkeep of the pavement on these streets. Maintenance of the paving is completely the responsibility of the homeowners on those streets.
Some friends of mine, Jim Lerner & Anita Springer, live on Tamarac Rd in Upper Falls, a particularly curious private road. Most private ways are dead ends, or very short streets with no or little traffic. Tamarac Rd, because of the history of the area, is not your typical private road.
On one end, it connects to Rockland Place, another private road that is one of the most charming little winding back roads in the neighborhood. If you look at a map of 1874 you can clearly see both an unlabeled Rockland Place and Tamarac Rd. Today the other end of Tamarac Rd connects to the circular Roundwood Rd. Back on that 1874 map, Roundwood Rd didn’t exist, it was property owned by the Woodward family.
Sometime in the 20th century, the city created a set of streets – Roundwood Rd, Hickory Cliff, Hemlock Rd, White Pine Rd as regular public city streets. The whole circular little enclave is called Eliot Hill. It looks like maybe all the houses there were built around the same time as a subdivision. The entrance to Eliot Hill is a little street that enters Route 9 at a busy/fast stretch of that road. At first glance, Eliot Hill appears to be a standalone island of houses with a single entrance from Rt 9. In fact though, there is a connection out the back way to little private Tamarac Rd.
These days, with Route 9 being what it is, residents there are immensely grateful to have a back way out.
These days the pavement on Tamarac Rd is in pretty tough shape. The only way to repave the road is for the homeowners to ante up the money themselves and hire a private contractor. In general that’s a very tough proposition because you need to get all the neighbors to agree to the plan and the financing.
Jim & Anita decided to put up the money themselves to do their end of the street. Their next door neighbor is Anil Adayanthaya, he sent out a note via email and NextDoor to the neighbors describing what Jim and Anita are doing and urged them to chip in to help pay for it. Immediately the surrounding neighbors began dropping off checks.
On Saturday, Anil’s across the street neighbor John “Bucky” Eysenbach had a brainstorm. He set up a chair out on Tamarac Rd. Every time a passing car drove by he flagged it down and explained to the drivers what was going on. Most of those drivers lived up on Roundwood, White Pine and Hickory Hill Rds rather than on Tamarac Rd. Once he explained what was going on, and that neighbors were all pitching in to upgrade the private Tamarac Rd, a bunch of these folks from neighboring streets that use Tamarac every day agreed to pitch in.
By the end of the weekend their little lemonade stand fundraising approach raised $5600 from neighbors on the connected streets, which was a great shot in the arm for the paving fund.
Hats off to Jim and Anita for starting the ball rolling and picking up a big piece of the tab, to the neighbors on Tamarac who immediately pitched in, to Anil and Bucky who came up with the idea of casting a wider net, especially to the folks up on Eliot Hill who immediately got that they have a stake in the fate of Tamarac Rd and stepped up to the plate too.
A great story all around.
Community at its best! Thank you, Jerry, for the lovely story to start the week.
That linked story has some fascinating nuggets, such as rules on parking and whether the overnight parking ban applies. It’s worth a read.
We looked at a house on that street back in 1998, and we never got out of the car! In front of the house was a crater the size of Jupiter! We talked to our real estate agent who said that because the road was private, the city was not responsible for the paving. That hole really scared us, and we were concerned so we never looked at the cute little blue house.
We are very happy with our wonderful neighborhood in Newton Highlands, and we purchased our current house in 1998.
It is sad that it took 18 years to have the neighbors collect for the road repair. I am in awe of the neighborhood leaders that started the process and my heart is glowing that other residents have helped out!
It warms my heart to read about neighbors and others supporting each other and working together for the good of their community. Thanks for the very poignant and interesting story.
I don’t understand how these private roads work. What happens if the condition of the road is so poor that a fire truck cannot get through? Does the city intervene at that point? What about snow plowing and trash collection?
Newtoner, the link “very strange legal beasts” at the top of the post addresses some of your questions.
I live next to a private way that is unpaved. It’s never been in great condition but there are legal issues in regards to who owns it relating to when it was built. There isn’t much you can do with it. The city plows it (I’ve seen plows get stuck in it) and that’s about it.
The truth is, if it became blocked in some way it wouldn’t slow down any emergency vehicles, as there are multiple access points to all other places the small road connects.
Still, we can’t get rid of it, so there it sits.
I’m not sure,but I think my little street is private too
The trash truck don’t pick up on it so I have to haul the bins down to the connecting street. I suppose I shouldn’t complain though, at least I now have my own water meter.
@ Robert Welbourn: note that the part of the linked article that implies the overnight winter parking ban cannot be enforced on private roads is quoting a Watertown official. I can assure you that in Newton the winter parking ban does apply to private roads. I was ticketed winter before last on the private road adjacent to our home, and protesting the ticket resulted in my receiving a copy of the relevant ordinance, followed by my coughing up $15. Enforcement is another matter however; as far as I can tell from talking to neighbors, that was the only night in the last several winters that tickets were issued (some neighbors park on the street year round every year). Surprisingly, Newton does run a snowplow down this dead-end, 7 house, private street. I don’t know what other rules may apply to private roads, nor am I aware of any that don’t apply in Newton.
@Jerry: the trash truck does come down our private street and pick up bins. Your street must be especially private. Probably can’t even see children swimming in the pools (oops, wrong thread).
@Bruce Blakely – LOL!!
My property abuts a private road in Newton Center. It is in poor condition, with 2-3 pond-size potholes. Nevertheless, it still gets lots of traffic – many regular users in addition to delivery trucks that are directed there by their GPS which don’t identify it as unpaved. I’ve thought of surveying the other abutters about paving it, but since it connects Centre Street to Mill Street, I think that it would result in a huge increase in traffic. The city plows the snow to keep it clear for emergency vehicles and will, upon request, dump a load of gravel for you to spread. Other than that, it’s not maintained.
Bruce, I feel your pain. Parking enforcement seems somewhat capricious at times.
Now, how do we get rid of the overnight parking ban, except for snow emergencies?
Thanks, Jerry, for a great story. Tamarac Road is now vastly improved. I would only like to remind the residents of Eliot Hill to please be careful on Rockland Place, the other private road that is part of the “back way out” and, as Jerry says, “one of the most charming little winding back roads in the neighborhood.” Rockland Place is a one-lane road with a blind, 90-degree turn in it and lots of young kids (who use the footpath at the turn to reach the Emerson Playground and the NPS buses). We have already seen an uptick in traffic on Rockland Place since Tamarac was paved, and an increase in speed as cars come down Tamarac and turn onto Rockland without stopping (there is no stop sign, because both are private roads). More traffic on Rockland seems inevitable now that Tamarac has been repaved, but please drive as if your kids lived here, and pull over into driveways, not onto lawns, when allowing other cars to pass.
Oops – I left out Hemlock Rd as one of those Eliot Hill streets that pitched in.
I agree with Inez – the downside of eliminating the natural speed bumps of the old Tamarac Road is that the residents of Eliot Hill are now flying down the hill and onto the very dangerous (and kid-filled) Rockland Place without stopping. Please SLOW DOWN.
It’s also important to keep in mind that the main reason why Jim and Anita ponied up the money to pave Tamara was in order to sell their house. The road’s condition was (obviously) proving to be an obstacle in the marketing of their house (and any other house on Tamarac). It would have been REALY nice if this effort had been started about 10-15 years ago. All the dirt, gravel rocks, and broken asphalt have been flowing onto Rockland Place (and in front of my driveway) for as long as I can remember. Better late than never, I guess.