NORWAY – Selectmen have decided to adopt a portion of an old road even though it has not been worked on for more than 30 years and could have been excluded from the municipal road system.
But the selectmen, with the exception of Russell Newcomb, voted to take on the small section of Lyman Herrick Road, which leads into a portion of road maintained by a new property owner, Stephen MacDonald.
MacDonald bought land off the road several months ago and fixed up a section of the access road that the town voted to discontinue in 1951. He was told the town was responsible for taking care of a stretch of Lyman Herrick Road leading to his section, he told selectmen at a recent meeting.
But later he was told he was misinformed and that this part of the road had been abandoned. Even though townspeople never voted to discontinue the road, the town was not legally responsible for taking care of it because it had not been maintained for so long, according to official findings.
Newcomb said recently that he voted against adopting the 500-foot stretch of road because he thought it set a risky precedent. “As more development takes place and people try to find places to find houses, they’re going to get onto these older roads,” he said.
“I was just concerned about the precedent it would set with any other roads we have in town that might fall into the same category – maybe abandoned, not having maintenance. This was only 500 feet, but the next one could be a mile and a half and we would be expected to treat it the same way.”
He said it is hard to know how many other roads might fall into the same category.
Selectman William Damon said that because MacDonald has already improved his portion of the road, it seemed fair to take care of the section of the road in question.
“It was never officially discontinued and the individual put a lot of work into it to upgrade it,” he said.
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