Creative solutions sought for Paugus, Prescott, Janes aves to continue receiving city services

LACONIA — City councilors tabled a resolution that would have stopped public works from providing certain city services to Janes Avenue and approved another designating Paugus and Prescott avenues as emergency lanes for another year while they search for a solution to issues caused by old, confusing city ordinances. 

Paugus and Prescott avenues are small routes through a residential area off Lake Street about halfway down to the Weirs. They’re private roads and residents in that neighborhood say the city has been providing services, such as plowing and salting during the winter, for decades, and hope to work with the city to keep it that way.

Similarly, Janes Avenue is a small and private road in the Weirs, just over the Centenary Avenue bridge and nearby to the waterfront of Lake Winnipesaukee. It was created by a developer to allow residents access to homes there. A resolution submitted to city council at their July 8 meeting would have stopped the city from providing services there including winter maintenance and trash pickup. 

Residents of both areas came told councilors at the meeting they hope to see services continued in their areas — those on Janes Avenue hope the city will approve their inclusion in the accept-as-is program and those who live on Prescott and Paugus avenues hope to see a creative resolution to obstacles in the city betterment process.

“When we brought this up, we’ve been trying to remedy this for 10, 12 years,” Shawn McGuire of 83 Paugus Ave. said during a public hearing. “We don’t want our street to change as it has been, what we considered a public street, though as the attorneys have told us, they say it’s private. We’re looking to remedy it, we would like to stay on the tax rolls, paying all the taxes that we pay, to continue being treated as a city street — that comes with our trash pick up, our plowing and maintenance.”

The core of the issue lies in the city’s accept-as-is program and the betterment process. Roads the city has in the past provided services to cannot participate in the accept-as-in program, but can become a private road through betterment. Under betterment, abutters can repay the city for the cost of improving the road up to city standards within 10 years so that such a road could eventually be accepted as a public road.

City council guidance on the accept-as-is program, adopted in 2019, requires every abutter to agree to participate before initiating the betterment process to accept a private road as a public street. Furthermore, private roads where the owners are known are not eligible for the accept-as-is program; all abutters must agree to give the city an easement; roads will not be brought up to city standards; dirt roads will remain dirt roads; abutters of roads that are eligible to participate in the accept-as-is program can petition the city for a betterment process to improve roads to meet city standards if all of the abutters agree; and those roads where the owners are known can use the betterment process to have roads accepted by the city if all abutters agree to participate and pay for the improvement process.

According to a city report, Prescott Avenue has 28 abutters with acreage varying between 0.5 and 4.2 acres.

“We have a lot of single-family homes, it’s a paved road, there’s sewer there. I’m up all the time with my kids,” Christopher Nealy of 89 Prescott Ave. said during a public hearing. “Trying to collect money to plow the street is just not going to happen ... it would create a big problem for emergency vehicles trying to get down the road.”

Pete Boettcher, of 20 Janes Ave., is spearheading the effort by Janes Avenue residents to have that road accepted as a city street. He told public works staff the owner of 49 Centenary Ave., listed on a database as Patricia Mailloux, will not agree to sign the required easement, according to a July 8 staff report. That property sits at an intersection of Janes and Centenary avenues and has one side which abuts Janes.

And the condominium association on Prescott and Paugus avenues, The Lake Houses at Christmas Island, asked staff how the costs of the betterment process would be apportioned, if the process were to begin before they agree to participate, according to a March 13 staff report to the council public works subcommittee.

According to that report, The Lake Houses at Christmas Island has the most frontage on Prescott Avenue and could expect to pay the largest portion of the cost to participate in the betterment process, depending on how the city council works out a process. Representatives of the condominium association noted the city maintains a pumping station just west of their property and they believe the city will continue to plow enough of the road in order to access the pumping station even if abutters do not participate in the betterment process, and public works also plows past their driveway entrances.

“There is a disagreement as to whether it’s currently a public street or private,” City Manager Kirk Beattie said regarding Prescott and Paugus avenues. “There’s this back and forth. It’s been a very cordial back and forth, but it’s been back and forth on trying to figure out if there’s something that we’re missing one way or another. By requesting an emergency lane designation, what this would allow is no changes right now with the services they’re seeing. Essentially, nothing’s going to change.”

Additionally, a July 8 report states the public works department has been engaged with abutters for more than a year and some abutters will not agree to participate in the betterment process. That report recommended city council designate Prescott and Paugus avenues as emergency lanes through June 1, 2025, in order to allow abutters more time to acquire full participation, or alternatively to form a road association.

The crowd, which included residents of all three roads, clapped loudly when Mayor Andrew Hosmer said a creative solution should be reached to address the worries of those living in those neighborhoods. 

“We in 2024 are cleaning up a mess that was started 50, 60 years ago, and it never fails to go without noticing that somewhere along the line either a developer or someone in the real estate business maybe wasn’t completely forthright when they sold property to these folks, and maybe these folks had attorneys that didn’t do complete due diligence to make sure they were completely aware that they were on a private road and may be subject to losing public services at some point,” Hosmer said during deliberations. “Here we are in 2024 and I think about our tax rate, I think about the total valuation on both Prescott and Paugus avenues, and I think we could do a pretty quick calculation as to how much all of those properties pay in taxes. The idea that they’re receiving less in services strikes me as not right, quite frankly.”