By Laura Shoe, Mary Leoni, Polly Habliston and Debra Higbee
Imagine calling Lane County to come fix a pothole — or worse — and being told that road maintenance is entirely your responsibility. That is what 700-plus homeowners in the River Road and Santa Clara areas of Eugene are facing, on roads classified by the county as local access roads (LARs).
These are public roads, yet the county refuses to maintain them. Instead, adjacent homeowners must do so — which is both unjust and unsustainable.
Most affected homeowners don’t know they live on an LAR. They purchased their homes assuming road maintenance was covered like on any other public street. Without this knowledge, they could not save for or plan to conduct maintenance. Lane County’s failure to inform them makes it responsible for the roads’ current conditions.
The LAR classification is typically for gravel roads connecting a few homes in the country to a county road — in this case, owner maintenance is reasonable. But in River Road and Santa Clara, most LARs are paved residential streets, indistinguishable from county-maintained ones, with dozens of homes on them. They serve all the purposes that county-maintained roads do, including bearing through-traffic, yet homeowners alone are responsible for their upkeep.
This misclassification dates back to the mid-20th century when Lane County had no set standards for incorporating roads into its system. As a result, some roads were arbitrarily left out and remain so today.
LAR homeowners in these mainly low-to-moderate income areas must cover all road maintenance costs — or just let their roads deteriorate and face the possibility of the county imposing assessments and liens on homeowners to repair them.
When roads deteriorate, homeowners’ property values also suffer. (Many LARs did receive one-time maintenance in the early 1990s, so fortunately the majority of roads are not in poor condition yet.)
Adding to the injustice, LAR homeowners pay the same property and gas taxes as their neighbors on county-maintained roads. They receive no tax credit for not receiving this most basic government service.
Worse still, LAR homeowners are legally liable for road conditions. If a pothole causes an accident or injury, they — not Lane County — could be sued. Homeowners insurance is unlikely to cover this liability, leaving residents at risk for financial ruin. Public road liability should never be placed on private individuals.
Lane County claims it lacks funding to maintain LARs. Yet LAR homeowners’ tax dollars have paid for road maintenance elsewhere for decades. This is not a funding issue — it’s a fairness issue.
Budgets are indeed tight, so we are not calling for an immediate funding increase.
We call on the Lane County Board of Commissioners to pass an ordinance incorporating all residential LARs within the urban growth boundary into the county road system. Accept these roads as they are, without requiring homeowners to pay for costly upgrades to meet new-road standards, and prioritize maintenance spending on all county roads according to usage and condition.
Some worry that this will delay maintenance on current county-maintained roads. LARs have unjustly had their maintenance delayed for decades.
Some argue the city of Eugene should take over these roads. Annexation at best would take years and is controversial. The county created this problem — it can and must fix it now.
There are also several county-designated “private roads” from the same mid-century time period that are used by the public. If residents want these included, Lane County should take on these as well.
Lane County must take responsibility for these roads and end this long-standing injustice. Homeowners should not be left paying for a mistake the county made decades ago. The Board of Commissioners must act now — before these roads fall further into disrepair and homeowners face escalating financial and legal risks.
River Road and Santa Clara Residents: Visit LARsinEugene.com to see if your home is on an LAR, and join the fight to ensure that our public roads are treated as public responsibilities.