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Residents urge Encinitas to fix Coal Ranch Road; staff estimate roughly $4 million to meet city standards
Summary
Several residents urged the council to reclassify and repair Coal Ranch Road and 5th Street, citing safety hazards and lack of maintenance agreements; staff said property owners are currently responsible for upgrades and estimated roughly $4,000,000 to bring the road to public‑project standards.
Several residents who live along Coal Ranch Road and nearby 5th Street urged the Encinitas City Council to change the roads’ maintenance status and to budget for repairs, arguing the current pavement condition poses daily hazards to walkers, cyclists and drivers.
"Fixing 2 or 3 potholes isn't gonna help. Redesignate them as publicly maintained," said Suzanne Claussenstock, who told the council she and about 48 property owners rely on Coal Ranch Road as the only access to their properties and that title searches found no recorded street maintenance agreements assigning the duty to property owners. Claussenstock described repeated requests for pothole repairs and recounted heavy horse‑related traffic and commercial deliveries that, she said, exceed the road’s original construction.
Denny Neville and Richard Houck expanded on the safety and historical‑notification concerns: Neville warned of growing roadway deformities he called "inverted speed bumps" and asked for immediate pothole remediation; Houck, a long‑time resident, said previous lot splits increased traffic onto the road without resident notification.
In response, city staff described the statutory and policy framework. Staff said the standard process is that adjacent property owners are responsible for bringing a roadway up to current city standards before the city will accept it into the public road system for ongoing maintenance. The city estimated a high‑level rough order of magnitude to improve Coal Ranch Road to public‑project standards at about $4,000,000. One council member’s quick math, shared in the meeting, equated that total to roughly $70,000 per household for about 57 homes.
City legal counsel summarized the statutory position: until a roadway is improved and accepted into the city's road system, the public entity has no liability. Council members and the mayor noted the city has historically performed some repairs on similar alleys and acknowledged a "gray area" about past maintenance actions; Mayor Ehlers said the city may have increased liability from past repairs and that the question requires further legal clarification.
The work plan includes Objective 3.2.1, which directs staff to develop policies for the class of "city‑owned but privately maintained" streets. Staff told the council that analyzing all encroachments and the privately maintained public right‑of‑way is resource‑intensive and that completing the fieldwork in a single year would likely require either internal staff reprioritization or funding for consultant support.
No formal action was taken at the meeting; staff will return with policy options, cost estimates and recommendations on next steps for Coal Ranch Road as part of the work plan process.
