A proposal for Frelinghuysen Township to resume responsibility for Camp Weaqua Road was tabled by the Township Committee until at least January at the request of committee member Kirk Perez.
Perez had spent much of the past year unsuccessfully trying to get the committee to reverse its 2022 decision to vacate the 700-foot road off of Bear Creek Road. By vacating the roadway, the township conveyed the right-of-way to the property owners along the road. Those residents then bear the cost and responsibility of snow removal and general maintenance of the road.
Not surprisingly, the handful of property owners on Camp Weaqua Road have not been pleased with the change.
Committee member Keith Ramos said at the time Camp Weaqua Road was vacated that it was a private road, which he further described as “a shared driveway.”
In September, the committee—in an attempt to address what some residents felt were unanswered questions about the road—directed township engineer Paul Sterbenz to examine its condition. He was paid $1,500 as the committee considered the job to fall outside of his regular, part-time responsibilities.
In his report, submitted late last week, Sterbenz said that to bring the road up to Residential Site Improvement Standards—the statewide requirements for improvements made in connection with residential development, including streets—would cost at least $167,000. He also said the road lacks a turn-around at the end, sometimes forcing large trucks to back out of the road.
Perez pointed out that work to include a turn-around is in progress, but Sterbenz maintained that any such work would be a violation of township ordinances because driveway improvement requires a permit. And if it was a public road, residents should not be permitted to make changes on their own.
In general, when roads and streets are approved and completed by developers, those roadways are conveyed to a local government such as a municipality or a county. Those roadways must meet the Residential Site Improvement Standards before they are conveyed.
While the regulations are clear on new construction, it gets murkier with older roadways. The if, where, and when that a town accepts responsibility of a road can extend well beyond record-keeping. Frequently, the informal “Because We’ve Always Done It That Way” rule applies when trying to determine why a governing body plows a particular road or provides a service that predates the memory of present-day officials. Or their parents. Or their parents’ parents.
Under the light of contemporary regulations, however, sometimes that justification is called into question. Vacating a street that has fallen into disuse or is determined to no longer benefit the public is not an unusual occurrence, and most of the time nobody even notices.
But sometimes they do.
Joe brings decades of journalism experience to the Ridge View Echo, covering everything from local school boards to the U.S. Supreme Court. A former National Law Journal editor and Columbia Law School press officer, he now enjoys telling community stories in Blairstown, where he lives with his wife, Rose, and their two dachshunds.
- Joe Phalon, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/joe-phalon-contributing-writer/
- Joe Phalon, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/joe-phalon-contributing-writer/
- Joe Phalon, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/joe-phalon-contributing-writer/
- Joe Phalon, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/joe-phalon-contributing-writer/
