MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. — If there is a pothole in your neighborhood or a road that’s damaged, there’s typically someone you can go to talk about getting it fixed.
For some neighborhoods in Mecklenburg County, that’s not the case.
These people live on what are called orphan roads.
Orphan roads are publicly used roads that aren’t maintained by public dollars.
John Paettie moved into the Palisades area not knowing the road outside his subdivision, Grand Palisades Parkway, is an orphan road.
“We pay enough taxes,” Paettie said. “We don't need to be taking care of a road that’s out of our tax money.”
Orphan roads are categorized as roads that are publicly used but not maintained by any local, state, or federal dollars.
Orphan roads are created in a few ways. One way is because someone lives in an unincorporated area of the county and road maintenance isn’t covered.
Another common type of orphan road is a road that is now public but was previously private. When developers built houses in the area, they failed to turn over the newly constructed roads to the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
Senate Bill 685 would put $750,000 towards Grand Palisades Parkway to make necessary improvements for it to become a state-maintained road.
North Carolina State Senator DeAndrea Salvador, who represents Mecklenburg County, is the primary sponsor of the bill.
“I would be surprised if they [orphan roads] are not seen in every Senate District statewide and every, you know, county commission district within our county here,” Salvador said. “Now the scale of them can vary. You have some larger traffic at road traffic roads like what we're seeing in Palisades. You may have some smaller ones that are more neighborhood specific.”
That’s the case for a subdivision in the Rocky River neighborhood.
“We just need help," Sandtrica Elliot, who lives on an orphan road, said. "We want help. How can we get it? What do we need to do?”
Elliot and other neighbors have worked for more than a decade to fix their roads and to get funding for their orphan roads so they can be taken over by a local, county, or state entity.
“I had one neighbor who was actually at the intersection, he purchased his home and within seven months, he was gone,” Elliot said.
There’s a way for the NCDOT to take over these roads but first, they must be added to the state system.
These roads must be properly fixed and paved to the standards outlined by the NCDOT. That takes money that for now is up to homeowners to come up with.
“In order for the neighborhood to be brought up to NCDOT standards it was going to cost upwards of $300,000,” Elliot said.
Which is a price tag everyone in the neighborhood can’t afford.
"Someone on a fixed income can't just come up with that,” Elliot said.
Another roadblock to collecting money from homeowners is ownership rights in the subdivision which has about 148 houses according to Elliot.
“About 40 to 43 of these homes are owned by corporate landlords," Elliot said. “So getting them to sign on to some of the legislation is like pulling teeth. They're like, no, you know, we don't want any parts of it. Because they are not here on the ground.”
SB 685 would put $5 million into orphan roads in Mecklenburg County like the ones in the Rocky River area.
Elliot said the roads not being repaired are more than just a cosmetic issue.
“Not only risking ourselves, but the ability for the medical personnel or our first responders to adequately get to us safely,” Elliot said.
Homeowners said due to the importance of the road and out of fairness, it’s not a sustainable solution to have homeowners be responsible for its maintenance.
“It can't solely go in the hands of HOA of the Palisades, the homeowners -- to come out of their pocket for a road that is used by hundreds of cars a day," Paettie said. "That would be totally wrong."
The legislation notes Grand Palisades Parkway could also be used as an emergency evacuation route and impacts a few dozen local school bus routes.
The Rocky River neighborhood doesn’t have an HOA, and currently, a small community group fundraises money for the roads.
Similar bills to reform and fund orphan roads are currently in both the North Carolina House and Senate.
Contact Shamarria Morrison at smorrison@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.