For decades, the City of Burlington has plowed snow and performed routine maintenance on some streets it doesn’t actually own. That practice may soon come to an end. The Department of Public Works announced late last month that it would stop servicing 54 roads, many of which are not built to c ity standards, by next October. Residents were given three options: bring their streets up to code, pay the city to maintain them or do the work themselves. After city councilors said the timeline was too rushed, department officials agreed to hold off on any major changes. But the underlying conflict remains. “We need to have a clear, unambiguous policy on what service we’re providing,” Public Works director Chapin Spencer said. The city will work with residents “to bring forward a sensible and fair approach,” he said. The roads in question are scattered across the city, though they are concentrated in the New North End. Some are densely populated, and others are more like shared driveways than full-on streets. By Seven Days’ rough count, at least 600 homes line the 54 corridors. For residents who live on the streets, the city’s proposal is neither sensible nor fair. They’re not keen on losing a service the city has provided for years. “They’re just saying, ‘To hell with you,’” said Richard Wheeler, who has lived for 30-plus years on Browe Court, a one-block residential street in the city’s New North End. “There’s going to be an enormous amount of people who are upset when they find out the consequences of this.” The disputed streets fall into two categories. Private streets are those that were built for specific neighborhoods or developments, such as the North Avenue mobile home co-op or Deforest Heights in the Hill Section. The city has confirmed, through property records, that they’re not publicly owned. “Unaccepted streets” are those believed to be private but whose ownership status remains unclear. Many of them were built by developers long ago but were never deeded to the city. A car on West Road in Burlington’s New North End Credit: Courtney Lamdin © Seven Days Roads in both categories may not meet city specifications, which require all public streets to be at least 22 feet wide and have sidewalks and curbs, among other features. At least three of the 54 roads — Chase Lane, Rumsey Lane and the very end of North Avenue — are dirt. Not all of the roads have gotten equal treatment. According to a memo, the city plows five of the 32 private roads and 14 of the 22 unaccepted ones. The document doesn’t specify which roads get other maintenance, such as pothole filling, or whether they receive any city services at all. City officials say that inconsistency is one reason the system needs to change. Using tax dollars to improve nonpublic assets is one concern, while there are also liability issues around working on private property. The question of how to handle these streets has cropped up several times over the years but has never been fully addressed. Councilor Mark Barlow (D-North District) recalled learning about the issue last summer, after a constituent’s vehicle was damaged by potholes on North Cove Road. Barlow, who chairs a council committee focused on transportation, asked Spencer why the city hadn’t filled them, as it had for years. Spencer explained that the street, which is barely wide enough for two-way traffic, is an unaccepted road. He sent crews to fix the holes but said the city needed a policy going forward. A memo presented to Barlow’s committee last month detailed the department’s position. It said crews would stop maintaining private and unaccepted streets after October 1, 2026, unless residents paid up — as much as $143 per hour for plowing, plus the cost of salt. Alternatively, residents could choose to bring their road up to code, an expensive and lengthy process. Otherwise, they would be on their own. Councilors pushed back, saying the situation is too complex to resolve within a year.  “Every single one of these roads, I think we need to look at,” Barlow said in a follow-up interview. “We can’t just say we’re going to abandon them and ‘Good luck to you. And if you want us to help, here’s our rate sheet.’” In an interview with Seven Days, Spencer emphasized that the rates are estimates and that the proposal is only the first step in resolving a decades-long problem. He said it was fair for councilors to ask for more time on the issue. At a transportation committee meeting this week, Spencer said the October 2026 deadline is moveable. “We will push that date out if we need more time,” he said. “This is a process that’s going to engage all of us: the council, the public and staff.” Residents already have concerns. Seven Days spoke to six homeowners on four unaccepted streets, none of whom knew their road’s status until they saw the city’s list or talked to a neighbor who had. Their houses aren’t part of a homeowners’ association, which would typically pay for road improvements or be billed for municipal services. All but one homeowner said the city has plowed their street for years.  “With the amount of taxes we pay, they should be plowing our driveways.”Dave Hartnett Seamus Page, a South Burlington real estate attorney, said road ownership anomalies may not turn up in title searches, which typically go back 40 years in Vermont. He said it could take a lot of research to determine who ultimately owns each road or what portion of the road each homeowner is responsible for. Browe Court resident Jeff Ploesser said his real estate attorneys never flagged the issue when he bought his home in 1996. He plans on selling in a few years and worries that an unaccepted road could devalue his home. “Who’s going to want to come onto a street where the city’s not taking care of it?” he said. Wheeler, another Browe Court resident, said the city’s plan would force neighbors to form associations, which he fears could be costly. Logistics aside, he said he also objects to losing a long-standing city service when he pays taxes like everyone else. Wheeler’s neighbor, former city councilor Dave Hartnett, agreed. “With the amount of taxes we pay, they should be plowing our driveways,” he quipped. Volz Street in the Old North End Credit: Courtney Lamdin © Seven Days John Shappy II has lived at the end of North Avenue for all of his 69 years. An enclave in the city’s northernmost reaches, the neighborhood is home to many other longtime residents who Shappy said don’t have the means to pay for road services. Volz Street, a one-block street off Manhattan Drive, also has several older and low-income residents, some of whom are physically disabled, according to Jenna Thayer, who has lived there for nearly 20 years. When a plow didn’t show up during a big storm some years back, family members of one elderly couple helped shovel the entire street.  “We’ve been able to come together as a neighborhood and help each other out,” Thayer said. “But if folks aren’t home, or if more people are not able-bodied, that would be really hard to manage.” She hopes that her street and certain others that don’t meet city code will be exempted from future rules. Councilor Barlow is open to creating some carve-outs, as is fellow transportation committee member Councilor Gene Bergman (P-Ward 2). But Bergman isn’t sure every road should qualify, particularly those that are in rough shape. The problems could be costly to fix. Some of the roads have “limited lighting, no sidewalk, limited or no curbing,” he said. “The question is: Are we OK with that?” Barlow said he wants to know which streets, if any, have homeowners’ associations and why each road doesn’t qualify as a city street. He also wonders whether in some instances the city might have dropped the ball. In 1975, city councilors voted to accept Franklin Square to the street grid, but the action was never properly recorded in land records, leading to disputes with the street’s former owner, the Burlington Housing Authority. It wasn’t until 2020 that the city formally, and officially, accepted the street. “It’s going to be a bit of an untangling process,” Barlow said. City officials last week launched a web page about the roads and mailed notices to affected residents. The department will host community meetings to hear their concerns. Some residents got a jump on the process by speaking at Barlow’s committee meeting this week. Jake Schumann, who owns property on the unaccepted North Cove Road, said that to stop providing essential services would be an “abrogation of civic duties.” “Heads need to roll,” he said. “It’s really messed up, and I don’t want to pay my taxes as a result.” The other residents appeared to agree. The room erupted into applause. The original print version of this article was headlined “End of the Road? | A Burlington proposal to stop maintaining certain streets caught residents by surprise” The post Burlington Proposes to Stop Maintaining Some Roads appeared first on Seven Days. ...read more read less