Department: County Engineer
Department Head/Elected Official: Milton Rahman, PhD, P.E., PMP, CFM, ENV SP, County Engineer
Regular or Supplemental RCA: Regular RCA
Type of Request: Policy
Project ID (if applicable): N/A
Vendor/Entity Legal Name (if applicable): N/A
MWDBE Contracted Goal (if applicable): N/A
MWDBE Current Participation (if applicable): N/A
Justification for 0% MWDBE Participation Goal: N/A - Goal not applicable to request
Request Summary (Agenda Caption):
title
Request for discussion and action regarding Orphan Road Program.
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Background and Discussion:
An orphan road is a roadway that no legal entity is responsible for maintenance and the burden falls on individual homeowners. In most cases, there is no formal Homeowners Association (HOA) in those areas. The County has no legal authority to allocate county funds to these roads even if they are in dire need of repair or maintenance.
Harris County is responsible for the maintenance of roads, where the road rights of way are dedicated to Harris County, the road is built per county standard, inspected by the Office of the County Engineer (OCE) accepted for ownership by the Precincts, and officially added by Commissioners Court to the County Road Log. In addition, Harris County has maintenance agreements with other government entities for the County to maintain and operate roadways owned by other entities. For private subdivisions, typically HOAs, management districts or municipal utility districts (MUDs) are responsible for the maintenance and operations of the roadways. In many cases, orphan roads are created when a developer becomes insolvent, and the roads were not turned over to County and the burden of maintenance falls to the individual homeowners and can result in potential mobility and public safety issues for the community.
Orphan roads can be broadly classified into two categories:
* Category 1: Dedicated Harris County public rights of way but streets have not been preconstru...
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