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@jkinak This is California, it will offend someone, and cause them cancer. There are JUMA (joint use maintenance agreement) we have with the State, but are not looking to have with the County. The County doesn’t want to pay fix a portion of road that primarily serves us or our tenants, and the FAA doesn’t want us to fix a road that is the responsibility of the County.
How about the county issue your agency a perennial encroachment permit “to improve and maintain’ the road segment? Alternately, or maybe in conjunction with the permit, can the county put that on a “not maintained” list, leaving maintenance to the adjoiners? I’ve seen county roads designated as “not maintained” up in Lake County, CA There are probably other examples…
If there is any other adjoiner who would receive half of any portion of the road, you are screwed. To take over the entire portion of road, you must be the only adjoiner.
Still, they need to vacate the portion of road you want. Locally, we have accomplished that in less than a month.
@holy-cow This is California. Our own internal forces getting prepared to meet with the County took over six months, then we had about a month of figuring out when we could all sit down together.
This is the rub, nobody wants that road vacated, and we want to maintain it. We’ll potentially get hit with some big fines/lose grants if we divert funds to fix this road before it is ours.
@bajaor We cannot risk losing grants/getting fined by the FAA because we diverted funds to fix someone else’s road. By vacating the road, a neighboring city will complain that we are closing the road even though our Airport Development Plan shows us keeping the road for atleast the next 10 years (our major tenant uses this road, and we don’t want to upset them).
I’d appreciate any example you may have of the “not maintained” county roads.
In the 1980s, our Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution to not add any dedications of public rights of way into the existing County maintained road system. The arterials connecting communities had already been in place, so interior collector streets were accepted as road and public utility easements, but specifically rejected for maintenance and inclusion into the County maintained road system. Maintenance falls into either Homeowners Associations or County Service Areas with assessments collected with property taxes.
This allows public utilities with franchise agreements to install and maintain facilities, and the public road easement is in place for measuring building setbacks and the like. The County’s General Plan Transportation Element takes this dichotomy into account.
Transferring a portion of an existing County maintained road into non-maintained status may be accomplished by a maintenance agreement with the underlying fee owner.
@warren-smith Thanks for you input Warren. The County and us could agree they will no longer maintain it (only a seal coat in 20 years), but my guess is the FAA’s lawyers would still say it isn’t our road to maintain.
It looks like vacation is our only feasible resolution, but the neighboring city will most likely shoot this idea down. Agreements require us to divert funds, which is a serious no-no. We could potentially do a joint use maintenance agreement, however this would require the County to pay their portion of up-keep (traffic study shows non-airport traffic being around 30%). We’ve explained this to them, and they aren’t willing to pay the $20k+ for their costs of a road that serves no County property or rural residents. This is an industrial area, and the road is in between two highway off ramps (101 & 380)
It is really unfortunate that everyone here has to lose in this situation.
I still think quitclaiming the easement without vacating the road is the best solution, even if it doesn’t legally transfer title. We’d have an official document to show the FAA, so now we could maintain that whole portion. The County road wouldn’t be vacated, so the intent for the road to remain open is there.
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