Windham council conditionally accepts Abenaki Drive as public roadway

Abenaki Drive has been accepted conditionally
by the town of Windham as a public roadway
provided that four homeowners there submit 
irrevocable easements absolving the town
of resulting damage from snow removal from
the road on those properties.
PHOTO BY ED PIERCE

By Ed Pierce

After an examination of how town plow trucks could best remove snow from the Abenaki Drive subdivision off River Road, Windham Town Council members have conditionally approved the acceptance of Abenaki Drive as a town road when four irrevocable easements from property owners there are obtained.

The plowing issue prevented councilors from reaching a decision about roadway acceptance for Abenaki Drive at its Sept. 14 meeting until town representatives could physically take a town snowplow there and explore how the road could be plowed safely and effectively. Because of the way the road was designed and built, questions about where the large town snowplow trucks could put snow scraped off the subdivision road arose.

Windham Public Works Director Doug Fortier told councilors at the Sept. 28 council meeting that after visiting the subdivision, he believes that for the most part, town plows can clear snow from Abenaki Drive into a designated common area but said there may be specific issues there when snowfall is heavy, roads are extremely slippery or for certain types of storms. Those issues could result in residents of the last four homes at the end on the road ending up with a wall of snow blocking their driveways.

“There are times maybe where we can’t put it into the designated area because of slipperiness or an overwhelming winter,” Fortier said.

The Abenaki Drive subdivision contains eight lots with homes and was developed by STJ, Inc. of Buxton and was approved by the Windham Planning Board in December 2017 and in May 2018. The road was one of the first constructed following updated town standards, but as part of the subdivision’s approval, Planning Board members granted two waivers from the public street standard, the requirement for a proper cul-de-sac and for sidewalks or widened paved roadway shoulders. 

STJ, Inc. offered an easement to the town for public access for 4.03 acres of common open space and stormwater drainage earlier this year in June and applied for Abenaki Drive to be formally transferred to the town as a public roadway.

But lingering questions about snow removal led town councilors to postpone a decision regarding acceptance of the road until Fortier could explore the situation there.

Windham Town Manager Barry Tibbetts said easements of the four properties would need to be irrevocable in the event property was sold or transferred and would absolve the town of responsibility for shrub or property damage.

For the last several years, Abenaki Drive has been plowed by smaller plow trucks by Gorham Sand and Gravel and pushed to the right side of the Abenaki Drive into a 10-foot culvert.

At the Sept. 14 council meeting, five homeowners of Abenaki Drive said they built homes in the subdivision because they were told that the roadway would be accepted as a road and maintained by the town, and they pointed out that the subdivision was approved by the Windham Planning Board.

Councilor Jarrod Maxfield said Abenaki Drive is one of the first new roads that the town has tried to get right.

“But with the waivers on that, you folks should have ended up with a much better road,” Maxfield said. “There should have been a sidewalk and it shouldn’t have been so compact. I just think you don’t know what you don’t know, but in retrospect and in watching the planning board meeting last night, I think we’re trying to meet folks in the middle. Now if we agree to this, we’re giving a neighborhood hundreds of thousands of dollars, so they don’t have to maintain that road anymore.”

Maxfield said accepting the roadway makes it more difficult for the town from a design standpoint, as councilors created an ordinance governing road design standards. He said when a developer asks for a number of waivers, those same developers need to realize they are putting that road in jeopardy for acceptance by the town for failing to meet established standards.

He said he believes the problems on Abenaki Drive are solvable and he hopes other developments learn from this and strive for better infrastructure.  

After a lengthy discussion, councilors approved accepting Abenaki Drive as a town road contingent upon receiving irrevocable waivers from the four homeowners of the affected properties and payment from the developer STJ, Inc. for legal fees associated with a review by the town attorney of those easements. <