With a boat out on the water, Rainbow Lake’s scenic qualities are evident in this view from Clearview Drive, one of nine Ridgefield Lakes roads adopted Wednesday. —Macklin Reid photo
Nine narrow winding Ridgefield Lakes roads were officially adopted as scenic town roads Wednesday night.
The roads were adopted on an overwhelming voice vote at a standing-room-only town meeting.
There was a little discussion.
“It seems completely reasonable,” said Jeffrey Miller of Mountain Road. “We’re taxpayers. We want to maintain safe roads.”
But the meeting was pretty quick — maybe half a dozen speakers — and the outcome never appeared in doubt. Some voices could be heard calling for a vote before anyone spoke for or against the proposition.
The nine roads adopted as scenic town roads by Wednesday’s meeting are: Lakeside Drive, Mountain Road, Shady Lane, Lake Road, Clearview Drive, Clearview Terrace; Lakeside Drive Extension, Rainbow Drive, Woody Place.
Lakeside Drive and Mountain Road are about a mile each, but most of the roads are short — a tenth of mile, some of them. Altogether the nine roads amount to a little over three miles.
While the roads are now expected to get more paving and other maintenance work from the town, their new status under the town’s scenic road ordinance means they will not have to be widened and brought up to the usual standards of new roads being accepted by the town.
The scenic status avoids that. It will help preserve the scenic quality of the Ridgefield Lakes area, and save the town millions of dollars in road improvement costs, First Selectman Rudy Marconi told the meeting.
The town may do work such as widening, or drainage improvements, if its determined the work is needed for public safety.
Now officially adopted by the town, the nine roads will be put into the town’s regular paving and maintenance schedule, Mr. Marconi said — although he warned residents not to expect to see town trucks out there tomorrow. There are a lot of roads in need of work after the last harsh winter, and some of the roads accepted got work last year.
Traditionally, the private Lakes roads got some maintenance work from the town if there was money left at the end of the summer paving season. But they weren’t part of the regular schedule.
The roads should also start getting more traffic enforcement attention from the Ridgefield Police.
“Police will have jurisdiction up there,” Mr. Marconi told the meeting. “You’ll probably see stop signs and speed limit signs.”
The crowd responded with applause.
There are numerous other private or unofficially public roads in the Ridgefield Lakes area that were not the subject of the homeowners’ petition that called Wednesday night’s town meeting, and the status of those roads remains unchanged.
The status of Lakes area roads has long been legally ambiguous, Selectman Andy Bodner told the meeting, since they were created as private and never accepted by the town but have traditionally gotten plowing, some paving and other maintenance by the town. That could potentially support a legal claim that they’re town roads because they have long been treated as such.
This, Mr. Bodner said, distinguishes the Lakes roads from many other clearly private roads in town, which are plowed and paved at the expense of the homeowers that own them.
Residents leaving the meeting could be heard thanking the selectmen: “Thank you, board.” “Thank you.” “Thank you guys.”