Permanent Road Divisions

In 2003, the Board of Supervisors adopted a policy on the acceptance of roads into the County Maintained Road System. In general, this policy requires that new roads or extensions of existing roads have a way to fund future road maintenance. A road can be brought into the County maintained system by forming a new sub-zone or annexing into an existing sub zone of a Permanent Road Division (PRD) to fund road maintenance.  The PRD works like an assessment district where assessments to fund major road maintenance projects (such as slurry seals and asphalt overlays) are collected on the tax bill of properties included within the boundary of the PRD sub-zone.  Each year the assessments are adjusted based upon a consumer price index (CPI).

The criteria to make a Permanent Road Division is as follows:

1) 100% of the underlying landowners must be willing to grant public road easements to the County. However, in some rare instances, a public right of way may exist and therefore there is no need to grant pubic road easements;

2) the road must be fully improved to County standards; and

3) 2/3 of the properties that use the road must vote YES to establish an assessment district to fund future road maintenance.

After all three of the above criteria are met, the Department would then recommend to the Board of Supervisors that the road be accepted into the County Maintained Road System.

If you have questions regarding forming a Permanent Road Division, contact the Land Use Division at 707.445.7205. Staff will be able to provide you specific procedures on how to go about forming the Permanent Road Division.