Council considers accepting private street into Peters Township road system

Peters Township Council voted to consider accepting a private street into the township road system if certain conditions are met.
The Brookview Villas Homeowners Association made the request for Mallard Lane, which is accessed at both ends from Valley Brook Road. Council members discussed the matter during their Jan. 28 meeting before tabling it, and then took the vote Feb. 25.

Harry Funk/The Almanac
Harry Funk/The Almanac
The western entrance to Mallard Lane, off Valley Brook Road
“I don’t think it’s a burden in terms of being able to maintain it,” township manager Paul Lauer told council.
He and other staff members recommend that the township establish a 33-foot public right of way for the street so as not to include the sidewalks that serve Brookview Villas homes.
“Even if they were within the right of way, our ordinance requires that they be maintained by the adjacent property owner,” Lauer said. “In addition to that right of way, there already is an existing 20-foot easement for storm, sanitary and utilities. So that, in conjunction with that 33-foot right of way, would allow us to be able to maintain any of the infrastructure that is there.”
Among the conditions to be met by the homeowners’ association are having an investigation conducted of the existing storm-sewer system and making any repairs that are required.
Council’s Jan. 28 discussion focused on why private streets exist in the township in the first place.
“For the most part, private streets have been created for the purpose to allow them to develop without being subject to our setbacks,” Lauer explained. “In all of these cases, what eventually happens is winter maintenance is such that people have a preference that we do this.”
In Peters’ low-density residential zones, the required setback between a building and adjacent rights of way or lot lines is 50 feet to the front, 40 feet to the rear and 15 feet to the side, according to the township zoning ordinance.
“We see these in a number of municipalities,” township solicitor John Smith said. “These are just really developers that get around the rules and then leave it to, what these people probably tell you, they’re taxpaying homeowners. They’re paying the same taxes as everyone else, so they want that particular service.”
A portion of the Brookview Villas Homeowners Association’s $160 monthly fee goes toward maintaining Mallard Lane and the storm sewers that serve it, according to resident Jay Fedorka.
“We pay the plowing company, I think, for four months, whether it snows or not,” he told council.
If the street becomes part of the township road system, the maintenance obligation shifts accordingly.
“This one is less problematic than some of the ones that we’ve looked at in the past, because its configuration is such that our maintenance of it would be no different than it would be of any other street,” Lauer explained.
He said that the township cannot prohibit private streets in new developments, but responsible parties “have to develop the road to township standards.”
Lauer also has recommended a zoning amendment:
“What we’re now going to do is to change the ordinance and say, you need to take this cartway and put it in a private right of way that is equivalent to what would be required by the underlying zoning. So there’s no advantage given to people who want to develop on private streets.”
By Pennsylvania statute, “cartway” refers to the portion of a street that is improved by surfacing with permanent or semi-permanent material and is intended for vehicular traffic.
“The problem you have is that it’s always the people who buy there whom you feel some sympathy for, Frank Kosir Jr., council chairman, said. “You never realize until you move in how much of those common-area expenses are eaten up by the street, itself.”

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