Thinking of Buying? What is the Road Access to the Cottage Like in the Winter?
Date: 01/30/2015
Indeed, the kind and the quality of road access can make or break your plans for the property in the winter. You may envision spending winter weekends at your new getaway. However, your plans could be compromised if the road to your cottage is private and the other property owners along the road don’t see the need to maintain the thoroughfare during the winter.
Before you purchase a cottage, make sure your winter plans aren’t at odds with the nature of the road or its condition during the winter. You should also research the present pattern of road usage and the current arrangement for road maintenance.
Although road crews routinely plow the road, it may not be easy to drive any vehicle on the thoroughfare. Indeed, drive-to doesn’t necessarily equate with urban comfort. Some of the bush roads of cottage country can certainly test your car’s suspension.
Cottage country is home to diverse road systems. The roads can be as refined as the city’s arteries – fully assumed by the municipality, paved, maintained, and serviced with weekly curbside garbage and recycling pickup. And many of the roads that lead to a neighbourhood of cottages are private roads – owned and maintained by a single property owner or a group of residents.
Is the road leading to your prospective cottage public or private?
If you want to buy a particular cottage, begin your research by finding out whether you access the cottage by a public or a private road.
Is your prospective cottage on a public road?
The City of Kawartha Lakes maintains its public roads. In the winter, the municipality’s public works department dispatches road maintenance crews to clear snow from the public roads and sand them when necessary. In other seasons, the municipality addresses a broader range of road-related problems, such as washouts, fallen trees, poor drainage, and thin gravel surfaces.
Most of the public roads within the Kawarthas are open year-round.
If the cottage you are eyeing is on a public road, please contact the City of Kawartha Lakes to confirm the extent of road services and maintenance provided. (We’ve included phone numbers at the end of this article.)
Is your potential cottage on a private road?
A private road is a local road the municipality does not own and has not assumed. As a result, the municipality does not service private roads.
Many of the roads that provide access from a municipal road to a cluster of cottages – along with individual cottage laneways are private affairs. A private road may or may not be publicly accessible. Private roads can range from a primitive bush road to a well-maintained, plowed-in-winter roadway.
Although the municipality hasn’t assumed these roads, they still need to be maintained – graded, graveled, and plowed if people occupy the cottages along the road in the winter.
The owners of cottages on a private access road are responsible for the road’s maintenance. The arrangement typically works like this:
Residents with cottages on the private road create a group to arrange and pay for road maintenance services – from grading and pothole repairs to snow clearance and sanding.
The individual property owners – or at least the members of the group – share the annual costs to maintain the private road. The road maintenance bill for each cottage owner is usually $200 to $300 per year. (Sometimes property owners who live year-round on the road will offer to assume a greater share of the annual maintenance bill.)
Occasionally, however, the arrangement doesn’t work as planned. One or two property owners may refuse to pay for the costs of year-round maintenance since they only visit their cottages in the summer months.
Sometimes it may prove difficult to collect money from all of the property owners on the road who had previously agreed to share in the costs. But for most cottage owners, the arrangement works well.
If the cottage you are considering buying is accessed by a private road, here are a few questions to ask:
Does the road belong exclusively to the property or do cottage neighbours share the road?
Is the road open year-round?
What is the annual maintenance cost for the private road?
What is the arrangement for sharing costs of maintenance on the road? Is this arrangement working well?
How will the difference be covered if some of the residents don’t contribute?
How quickly is the road cleared after a snowstorm under the private maintenance contract?
Is the laneway or driveway from the cottage to the road private or communal?
If residents share the laneway or driveway what arrangement is in place for its maintenance?
If you plan to use your cottage as a weekend winter retreat, don’t forget about your driveway. Here are a few questions to consider:
Is the cottage driveway long?
Would you be able to clear the driveway yourself with a snow-blower? If not, you’ll need to secure the services of a contractor for regular, prompt driveway plowing.
How do you contact the municipality?
If you have a question or concern about your road, please call 705-324-9411 Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. For after-hours municipal emergencies, please call 1-877-885-7337.
Photo courtesy of Roger Ahlbrand No Alterations Made - Creative Commons
