Private roads are prevalent throughout Maine, especially in the Lakes Region. They are so commonplace in Windham and Raymond that both towns have resource pages on their town websites providing information about how to form a road association, references to state statutes regulating such roads as well as how to get in touch with the Maine Alliance for Road Associations.
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| Terrace Road at Thomas Pond is a privately maintained road off Route 32 in Raymond and administered by a road association for sharing costs of plowing, grading and upkeep. PHOTO BY JIM BUNTIN |
MARA is a nonprofit corporation with a volunteer board of directors. It was formed in 1998 by Betsy Connor Bowen. “The alliance,” according to the MARA website, “is an online volunteer-sponsored community in response to the need to disseminate information to property owners who wish to form road associations for sharing maintenance costs of private ways under the continually evolving statute.”
MARA board member Andrew “Sandy” Allen says the organization helps members deal with “the challenges in common that face the people living along private roads in Maine, whether they belong to an informal road association, or a statutory road association, or a nonprofit corporate road association. Allen says they are concerned with road maintenance and sharing of expenses, understanding the laws that apply to road associations, and state laws.
He says they often have neighbor disagreements, and differences of opinion that we need to resolve to move forward with our maintenance in harmony and have a need for resources and answers to questions about the state laws that are now in existence.”
“MARA,” Allen said, “is formed to help answer questions that road association members might have and to provide perhaps some solutions to those problems that they might face.”
Maine’s road association statutes go way back stemming from archaic statutes having to do with private ways, MARA board member Roberta Manter said.
“Private ways were roads that were laid out at the request of an individual whose property was not yet connected to the public road system. Through changes in legislation and court cases it got to a point where the statutes didn’t apply to anything anymore,” she said. “Many people from lake associations and some other people went before the legislature and said, ‘look right now these statutes don’t apply to anything but it would be very useful if you just reworded it so they would apply to private roads rather than these private ways.’
“Although informal road associations may be successful for some owners, MARA favors the more formal ‘Statutory’ structure permitted by the Private Ways Statute,” according to the alliance website,” Manter said. “This statute offers road association governance through democratic processes, cost-sharing that is enforceable, and gravel road maintenance that is sustainable and environmentally friendly.”
Statute 23, sections 3103 through 3106, lays out how statutory road associations are formed and run. It also covers what happens when a private road property owner neglects to pay required fees for road maintenance, which can involve civil action; and it describes how a notice of claim at the county registry can be attached to the land for unpaid fees which must be paid upon the transfer of the land.
MARA is important because “many towns have more private roads than public roads,” Allen said.
In Windham, about 115 miles of roadways, roughly half, are private roads, according to Town Manager Robert Burns. He says that figure, which is from 2021, includes roads which are totally private as well as roads with public easements. Of the 108 private roads, 95 have public easements which allow the town to provide winter maintenance such as snow plowing.
According to Allen, private roads are very prevalent in Maine in part because of their expense, an expense that often municipalities don’t want to take on. When subdivisions are built, often the developer is responsible for building the road. Sometimes a town or city will accept a road as public and take on the expense for maintaining the roadway. However, even if a community had the will to do so, such roads would have to be built to the municipality’s standards, with shoulders, room for emergency vehicles, etc., and many private roads are not built to those standards.
To learn more about the Maine Alliance for Road Associations or become a member, go to the website maineroads.org. MARA’s website has resources regarding private road state laws, guidance on how to form a statutory road association, templates for road association bylaws, a discussion forum where members can post questions and other members can post answers and more.
In addition, to provide more information to its members the alliance holds an annual conference where attorneys, Maine Department of Environment Protection staff members and others hold workshops on specific topics like road maintenance and keeping roads environmentally friendly, liability insurance for road associations, conflict resolution, and more.
This year’s MARA conference will be held Oct. 4 at Maple Hill Farm Inn and Conference Center in Hallowell. To register or for more details, go to maineroads.org/ <
