Who’s responsible for Rustic Ranches’ roads?
Community, village dispute heads toward deadline on Sept. 30.
Community is poised to face a challenge it hasn’t taken on since becoming part of Wellington: maintaining its own dirt roads.
WELLINGTON — When it comes to communities within the village’s borders, Rustic Ranches stands out as among the most unique.
It is fairly new to the village, one of the more recent annexations after entering Wellington’s boundaries in 2004. It also features larger home sites, with everything from tree farms to horse barns to a replica of a 12th-century Irish castle.
Now the community is poised to face a challenge it hasn’t taken on since becoming part of Wellington: maintaining its own dirt roads.
The village in April notified the Pine Tree Water Control District — which is responsible for drainage in an area that includes Rustic Ranches, the Wellington Environmental Preserve and the Flying Cow Ranch property — that it no longer will maintain the district’s dirt roads after Sept. 30, the end of Wellington’s budget year.
Until the annexation, Pine Tree maintained the roads, charging an assessment fee for property owners to cover the costs.
The Village Council voted in October 2016 to cancel an agreement Wellington made with the district after the 2004 annexation vote to maintain the roads and provide administrative ser-
vices. The agreement was put in place with the expectation that the district would become dependent on Wellington, Village Attorney Laurie Cohen said. That would mean folding the district’s services into the village, similar to how the Acme Improvement District operates.
But Pine Tree property owners in 2006 shot down the dependency. The agreement’s cancellation was supposed to take effect in July 2017, but Wellington put that on hold as the village tried to negotiate a new agreement with Pine Tree’s previous attorney, records show.
Recently appointed Pine Tree attorney Philip Harris wrote in a letter to Mayor Anne Gerwig that no agreement should be needed because in maintaining the roads since 2004, Wellington has assumed ownership of the thoroughfares. He cited a Florida law that says if a municipality maintains a road for seven years, the municipality then owns and is responsible for that road.
“Frankly, we do not understand Wellington’s position in this matter,” Harris wrote, calling on Wellington to “rectify” its position on road maintenance. “As you know, when unpaved roads are not maintained, particularly in an equestrian neighborhood, they can rapidly deteriorate and pose a danger to the residents who use them.”
Cohen disagreed with Harris, saying in a reply letter that the law he refers to “does not apply for a number of reasons,” including that it is not meant to apply when roads are owned or maintained by drainage districts. The Rustic Ranches roads are owned by Pine Tree, she wrote.
While Wellington had collected gas taxes to pay for maintenance on the roads in Rustic Ranches, those roads were removed from the county’s gas tax map after the agreement was canceled, and Wellington is not budgeting any money to pay for continued maintenance, Cohen wrote. “Wellington has no interest in restarting these discussions or negotiations,” she said.
Harris was directed to write his letter by the district board of supervisors at their June 18 meeting. Board members admitted to “bad blood” between the district and the village over the lack of dependency vote, with board President Leland Wright describing Wellington’s decision to cease road maintenance “almost like a childish act.”
“Let’s just see what happens, but if the roads go to hell in a handbasket, it’s on Wellington’s hands,” Wright said.
The district’s next board meeting is at 6 p.m. Aug. 20 at the Loxahatchee Groves Town Hall, 155 F Road. Wright told The Palm Beach Post the board does not plan to take up the issue at that time. “It’s not our roads, it’s not our issue to take up,” he said.