Private subdivision road upkeep bedevils Gilbert

At least 90 subdivisions in Gilbert are facing a “ticking time bomb” when it comes to their privately owned roads, town officials say.

The problem comes after several years of wear and tear start to show and residents start wondering when the town’s government is going to get around to fixing their streets. But in developments with private streets, residents or their homeowners associations are responsible for maintaining the roads.

And as these neighborhoods grow older, their deteriorating streets become a problem for the entire town. As a result, the problem has been dropped in the Town Council’s lap as Gilbert helps look for solutions.

“It’s a time bomb because, basically, these homeowners associations don’t know what the costs are,” Gilbert Town Manager George Pettit said.

For years, developers have pushed through projects with private streets that generally don’t meet local municipalities’ standards for size or quality.

The Town Council recently decided to require contractors who win road maintanence contracts to perform the same work for HOAs at the same price charged to the town.

“They’re still fully responsible for the cost,” Pettit said. “Except now they have a vendor that they can call that we know is credible, is licensed and bonded, and will be performing work at the contract rate.”

And for now, town officials say it’s the best they can do for private-street neighborhoods since the state constitution prohibits spending tax dollars on private projects.

Often builders opt for narrower streets to allow for more houses or larger houses to maximize profits, said John Sentz, a board member of his homeowners association and member of Gilbert’s Planning Commission.

His neighborhood of about 60 homes had to pay for more than $100,000 in construction costs to have its private roads resurfaced. Fortunately in their case, the HOA was able to schedule the work with a contractor already working on nearby town-funded projects. Sentz figures the arrangement saved the HOA about 5 percent.

“If your streets look poor, then your house values won’t look good,” he said.

Gilbert Councilwoman Linda Abbott lives in a 55-home subdivision with private streets. Her HOA expects to be facing $500,000 in street repair costs in the next 15 years.

To Abbott, the problem isn’t so much that homeowners have to foot the bill, but that state law doesn’t give HOAs much authority to force every homeowner to pay.

“My plan is I’m moving,” Abbott said. “If the Legislature doesn’t take action, I’m not going to sink $50,000, $60,000, maybe even $100,000 into road improvement.”

She said it’s unreasonable to expect homeowners to anticipate what future road maintenance will cost.

The town’s current plan to allow HOAs to use Gilbert’s contractors is a step in the right direction, Abbott said.

Meanwhile, the town’s Planning Commission is getting tougher on developers looking to build private streets, mainly because of the maintenance issues coming up now, Sentz said.

“If they can’t make a compelling case for why it’s in the best interest of the homeowner to have private streets, then there really isn’t any need for them,” he said.

He called the council decision to include HOA-funded work under its municipal contracts “a major step forward.”

“If something can be worked out ... to me that would be a big benefit compared to paying a 10 or 20 percent premium because you’re in such a small quantity,” he said. “It would sure make life a lot easier for the HOAs.”