Ledyard Town Council: Old roads out, new ones in

Pentway can be legally abandoned if DOT is told

Ledyard — Wednesday night’s Town Council meeting was a whirlwind of votes, the culmination of several years of discussions on topics including ordinances for property tax relief and deferment for the elderly and disabled, subdivision open space plans and the abandonment of a town road.

The latter, which was approved unanimously by the council, was the result of an ongoing research project of Public Works Director Steve Masalin. At the meeting, he described Shewville Kate Swamp Road as something more like a logging trail than a road, and abandoning it would relieve the town of some liability and maintenance duties.

The pentway is the Ledyard extension of Indiantown Road off Route 2 in Preston, added to the official state Department of Transportation list of publicly maintained roads in 1952. Masalin said he couldn’t find any paperwork in the town records regarding the official addition of the pentway to the town’s public road inventory beyond the first selectman at the time declaring it so. In discussions with DOT staff, he found that neither the process nor the road itself would have met the standards for official road status.

Most of Shewville Kate Swamp Road is now within the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation reservation boundary. There are no properties with any standing or habitable structures served by it. By virtue of being a town road, a deteriorating wooden bridge that allows the pentway to cross Shewville Brook also has an official designation with the DOT.

Masalin said the town could legally abandon the pentway just by notifying DOT, since it was never formally accepted, but the town officially would abandon it following requirements in the Connecticut General Statutes. Opponents would have eight months to challenge the abandonment.

Properties on the pentway still would be accessible, though the Planning and Zoning Commission at its meeting in November recommended putting up signage indicating the road no longer would be maintained.

At the Wednesday meeting, the town also accepted portions of Stevens Avenue and Hilltop Drive in the Via Verde subdivisions into its road inventory and established a public hearing in January to discuss conveying the right, title and interest of a portion of Cider Mill Pentway to the

owners of the property it crosses.

That public hearing also will include discussions on transferring two small town-owned properties on Peachtree Hill Road and Christy Hill Road to the Avalonia Land Conservancy.