Dispute over Plantation, Colonial roads at the Weirs headed to trial

LACONIA — Residents of Plantation and Colonial roads will have to wait longer for a decision on their streets being maintained by the city, pending results of a lawsuit working its way through Belknap County Superior Court. 

Plantation and Colonial, located in the Weirs, are private, and residents there have become accustomed to municipal services like plowing and solid waste disposal.

On Oct. 28, 2024, city councilors declared the roads to be emergency lanes. That declaration expired on April 30. Monday night, councilors extended the declaration until Oct. 31, or the date of the Superior Court decision on Joy Sabato et al v. City of Laconia, whichever is first.

During a public hearing at the meeting at City Hall downtown on Monday, Frank Marino of 52 Plantation Road encouraged councilors to extend the declaration. 

“I bought my house on 52 Plantation Road about 40 years ago — it was my understanding that it was always an emergency lane designation. We always had emergency services throughout the 40 years that I’ve been here,” Marino said. “I don’t know when it changed to the point where we have another meeting to discuss continuing it being an emergency lane, I just don’t know why it changed because I thought it was always an emergency lane.”

“There has been an awful lot of miscommunication and confusion about the status of the road and what folks were buying,” Mayor Andrew Hosmer said. “I think this is an attempt to have it formally declared as an emergency lane — we were doing an awful lot of grading on that road, clearing out the end on [Route] 11B. A lot of concern about whether fire trucks could get up there, so I think this is the formal declaration.”

City Manager Kirk Beattie told councilors emergency declarations always expire, and this declaration is limited to a short time frame, tied to a potential resolution in lawsuit, which is scheduled for trial for Oct. 2-3. This designation expires in October.

“We’re going to continue this out until we get resolution from that suit,” Beattie said.

The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court on March 22, 2024, asks the court to grant a preliminary injunction directing the city to continue to maintain and repair Plantation and Colonial roads, to order the preliminary injunction be made permanent, to declare the roads to be public and to grant any further relief the court finds appropriate. 

Joy and Michael Sabato, and Lorrie and Jack Mirizio, all of Connecticut, own 102 Plantation Road. They purchased the property in August 1998, according to court filings, with the belief the road was public because the city plowed and graded them. City tax maps, they argue, did not indicate the road was private.

Beginning in 2018, city staff conducted research on roads, and determined staff had been maintaining some which officials believe are actually private, and Plantation and Colonial were among them. On Aug. 10, 2021, all property owners on Plantation and Colonial, including the plaintiffs, received notice from the city that council decided not to include those roads in the city’s “accept-as-is program”. That letter apparently instructed property owners to either assume responsibility for maintenance, or petition the council to accept the roads through a betterment process, estimated to cost $3 million in 2018. 

According to the lawsuit, city staff have maintained the roads since the plaintiffs' ownership began in 1998, and Joy Sabato said she witnessed the city maintaining the roads since the 1980s. City records also show it’s maintained the roads since at least the 1970s, to include winter plowing and year-round maintenance; curbside pickup for trash, recycling and compost; police patrol; granite curbs installed in 2013 and portions of Plantation paved; and the installation of a stop sign at the intersection of the roads and of “no parking” signs, but the city apparently removed those signs in 2019.

The Plantation and Colonial roads subdivision goes back a long way — in 1954, L.K. Perley recorded the Plan of Subdivision of Plantation House Estates, Endicott Street, Weirs, New Hampshire. Although not named Plantation and Colonial roads at the time, those roads are shown on the subdivision plan recorded at the registry on July 9, 1959, according to court filings. 

“Consistent with the acceptance of the dedication, the City has consistently provided plowing and maintenance services, trash removal and improvements on Plantation Road and Colonial Road since at least the 1970s,” the lawsuit argues. “The City’s records never designated Plantation Road and Colonial Road as private but always designated Heritage Road as private.”

In the city’s memorandum of law to support their objection to the request for a preliminary injunction, the city’s attorneys from Mitchell Municipal Group argue that while the roads were dedicated, it denies accepting them, either through implication or otherwise, and asserts the plaintiffs are not entitled to a preliminary injunction in the matter as they’re “unlikely to prevail on the merits of their claims, cannot demonstrate an immediate danger of irreparable harm, and have not even alleged that there is no adequate remedy at law.”

Following a hearing on the matter on May 28, 2024, Judge Elizabeth Leonard denied the plaintiffs' request for a preliminary in junction in a ruling dated June 6, 2024. Leonard, in a decision dated July 11, 2024, denied the plaintiffs' motion for reconsideration of her June decision.

On Jan. 28, the court set a trial in the matter at 10 a.m. on Oct. 2-3, in Belknap County Superior Court.