Local access roads (LARs) are in the county, not the city, but the county has been insisting that the city should annex those within the Eugene Urban Growth Boundary, making them city streets. However, the City of Eugene’s maintenance policy for unimproved asphalt streets (see pages 11–12) that I recently discovered raises serious concerns for homeowners on unimproved LARs.
Under this policy, unimproved asphalt streets — roads without stormwater drainage, curbs, and gutters — are effectively allowed to deteriorate. Regardless of how many decades these streets may have adequately served their neighborhoods, the policy states that “unimproved asphalt streets are considered to provide only a temporary travel surface until a permanent improvement is made to bring the street up to City standards.” In practice, this means the city may fill hazardous potholes, but generally performs no preventative maintenance except on the highest-priority roads, such as arterials, and takes no meaningful action to slow or reverse deterioration. Once these roads fail, if the city decides reconstruction is warranted, adjacent homeowners would then be assessed for the cost of rebuilding and improving the street to current standards.
Most LARs within the UGB are unimproved asphalt streets. Annexation into the city therefore would not ensure ongoing maintenance. What annexation would do, however, is remove the “LAR” designation — potentially excluding these roads from any future county or state LAR solution.
For that reason, we do not support annexation of unimproved LARs into the city without clear written assurances that these streets would not become subject to this policy. (Note that annexation of the streets is independent of annexation of private property.)
The implications for our neighborhoods extend well beyond existing LARs. In River Road and the older parts of Santa Clara, there are many unimproved roads currently within the county road system that are actively maintained. If those roads are eventually annexed into the city, they too could lose maintenance support and begin the same path of decline. That would have major consequences for property values, neighborhood stability, and quality of life throughout River Road and older parts of Santa Clara.
I was able to confirm my reading of city policy with Jackie Hallett, Surface Operations Manager, of the Public Works Maintenance Division. She responded:
“There are over 50 miles of unimproved streets [in the City of Eugene]. Due to limited funding, maintenance of unimproved streets is a low priority until they are upgraded to an improved classification. As a result, work on unimproved streets is generally limited to addressing hazardous potholes. However, unimproved streets maybe eligible for thin lift asphalt overlays through our Enhanced Street Repair Program. Again, due to very limited funding, these projects are prioritized based on severity and evaluated using multiple criteria, including street condition, cost, operational capacity and Ward equity. These projects may be completed either in-house or contracted services.”
Needless to say, we can’t count on all our streets qualifying for the very limited funding of the Enhanced Street Repair Program., particularly on an ongoing basis.
I have written twice to Ward 7 City Councilor Lyndsie Leech regarding this issue and have not received a response.