On June 4, Mayor Gee and Vice Mayor Malkani held an Infrastructure Subcommittee meeting to discuss the decades-long issue of homeowners who live on private roads and pay city taxes, yet receive none of that funding to maintain their own roads. The meeting made clear that private roads (pictured, Bigleaf Rd.) are no different than public roads (Wilder Rd.), except for who is responsible for their upkeep. Both Bigleaf and Wilder roads are accessible to the public, as are all Orinda roads.
More than 60 concerned community members attended the June 4 City Council Infrastructure Subcommittee meeting that discussed the decades-long controversy of the discrepancy in funding for maintenance of private and public roads.
Held at the Orinda Community Center, the two-hour assembly focused on solutions and encouraged comments regarding the 20% of Orinda’s homeowners who live on roads designated as “private.” Those homeowners pay taxes for public road maintenance, while their own roads continue to receive no help from the city.
Dozens spoke during the meeting and many expressed thanks to the subcommittee for reviving an issue that seemed dormant for quite some time.
The Infrastructure Subcommittee
The ad-hoc subcommittee, composed of Mayor Darlene Gee and Vice Mayor Latika Malkani, was created earlier this year to address contentious concerns about the private versus public road issue.
Orinda City staff, including City Engineer, Siva Natarajan, Director of Public Works and Engineering, Scott Christie and City Manager, David Biggs were present to field questions.
“The issues from the private roads/drainage group are about inequities in taxes versus services,” said Gee in an interview the following day. “And, in some cases, frustration at how hard it can be to get neighbors to fund maintenance with no mechanism to compel them to do that.
“Then having to deal with hiring contractors and overseeing work – that for the most part, they know nothing about – it’s a huge headache for them; some residents are sophisticated enough to realize there may be much bigger issues, such as landslides and other failures that they just are not equipped to deal with privately.”
Many residents who live on private roads, Gee said, have the feeling of being “second-class citizens in a fairly affluent community.”
Art Goldberg, who resides on a private road, said there’s a general misconception that people who live on private roads have special benefits – yet those roads are used daily by the public.
“Private roads are not private and there’s no special privilege – they’re just public roads that are not maintained by the city,” he said.
Legal Versus Fair And Practical
Legally, private roads are maintained by their owners, not the city however, Gee sees the overall picture as an interconnectedness – which should be beneficial to all, rather than some.
“I don’t believe having our community infrastructure being 80% publicly maintained and 20% privately maintained is the best overall approach for the community,” said Gee. “It results in the entire system being a patchwork quilt that is not consistently reviewed, inspected and supported evenly. And because it does all interconnect within the community, there is always the possibility that this uneven maintenance, particularly for drainage, may cause problems that affect more than the private road residents.”
Ideas, concerns and priorities from attendees varied greatly from creating timelines, conducting objective surveys, goal-setting, questioning whether surveys are even necessary or prudent, using StreetSaver and asking that P-TAP be done first.
P-TAP (Pavement Management Technical Assistant Program) helps Bay Area cities and counties make cost-effective improvements to streets and roads. StreetSaver helps pavement management teams plan and manage roadway improvement projects.
Gee and Malkani stressed throughout the meeting that finding solutions will take time, money, resources, data-gathering and a solid understanding of the city’s full infrastructure, with all data updated and in one place, in order to make informed decisions.
“I’m a civil engineer,” said Gee. “Councilmembers can have our own opinions, but we have to decide if we have a consensus among us. I personally see a benefit to the community to have a more integrated system. I don’t find it advantageous for 20% of our infrastructure to be maintained privately. You want to be consistent and have standards. I feel strongly about not asking 20% of our residents to be their own public works department!”
Attendees applauded Gee’s statement.
How The Problem Started
In order to understand the present situation, Gee touched on its root causes.
“The situation we have in Orinda was created due to many different factors – some being easy to understand and some that simply have no track record of what happened,” Gee said. “Some entities, like Wilder and other neighborhoods, have well-defined Homeowner Associations charged with maintaining the roads and collecting homeowner’s dues for that purpose. While those neighborhoods see inequity, they have mechanisms to keep the physical infrastructure maintained.”
Gee added, “Other neighborhoods have very different issues, including the challenges of not having any defined mechanism to collect monies and oversee the maintenance of their roads and drains.”
Where To Go From Here
Gee believes the next steps are for her and City Manager Biggs to finish wordsmithing the Initial Work Program Outline draft document (available at: https://bit.ly/3XbqP8B) with the tiered work plan.
“Then David and staff will put that together as an agenda item for the council’s June 18 meeting to ask the full council whether they are supportive of this work plan per the council’s original direction in creating the subcommittee,” said Gee.
She added that if the council approves it, then it’s brought back to the subcommittee to start creating some more detailed actions that staff can work on. Then those will also have to go back to the full council before they can be implemented.
The subcommittee sunsets in December; however, Gee said “the council could decide to extend it or could just let it end at that point.”
Hope Mixed With Trepidation
Goldberg saw the meeting as progress, especially in seeing many neighbors sufficiently concerned and talking about the problem, but he would like to see something more concrete.
“I believe the subcommittee heard the displeasure in the community loud and clear. It is good to see that the beginnings of a ‘plan’ were presented,” he said. “However, I have never seen a plan – that was worth anything – that didn’t clearly state the objective of the plan and the time frames in which the planned activities would conclude.”
Goldberg added, “I am gratified that the mayor and the vice mayor are taking on this challenge; however, I am not confident that their efforts – and ours – will result in rectifying this inequity in a reasonable timeframe.”
Kathy Finch, a resident for eight years who lives on a private road, felt this meeting was helpful.
“I think the meeting was productive because I believe the subcommittee understands that all of the city’s roads and storm drains are interconnected and part of the entire city’s infrastructure,” she said. “I think they understand that deficient roads and storm drains anywhere in the city affect all Orindans.”
Finch felt that most people at the meeting opined that there is no real difference between a street designated as “public” and one designated as “private.”
“They voiced the opinion that any street that is open to the public should be deemed a ‘public’ street and maintained for the use of all Orindans,” added Finch. “They told the subcommittee that we all pay the same taxes for road maintenance, so we all should receive the same benefit of our taxes.”
Ultimately, Gee felt advancement is taking place.
“I like to believe we are making some progress – if for no other reason[than] by once again bringing it up for public discourse and having the council recognize that this very divisive issue isn’t going to ‘go away’ – and that to just keep ignoring it will have eventual consequences,” she said. “As an elected official for the community, I don’t think it’s right to ignore the concerns of a large group of our residents. There are no easy solutions, but listening and trying to find them is what I believe the government should be doing.”
Update From June 18 Meeting
The Infrastructure Subcommittee presented an initial draft of its work program for the city council to discuss and provide direction. The subcommittee welcomed councilmembers’ suggestions for clarification and amplification of its Tiers of Tasks, which includes in its first Tier updating the city’s roads map and the city’s map of storm drains, as well as determining the condition of all roads in the city.
Several public speakers encouraged the city council to assess the state of all roads and storm drains in order to collect concrete data to determine the total condition of the city’s infrastructure.
A few speakers expressed concerns as to whether the city should include private roads and drains for maintenance or not. Subcommittee members explained the need for maps and data to determine the health of Orinda’s infrastructure and how they were only exploring these matters. After a lively debate, the city council unanimously voted to move forward with finalizing the subcommittee’s work program.
