Article date: August 01, 2000

Group’s president says residents forced to maintain private road without help

By Ashley May

Owners of contaminated land across the Shenandaoh River from the Avtex Superfund site are asking Warren County’s Economic Development Authority to pay the Rivermont Acres Property Owners Association $30,000 for 15 years in road maintenance fees.

Joe Swiger, the association’s president and the owner of one lot in the subdivision, said that besides the EDA’s 88 lots, about a dozen other lots are owned by private parties, who use them for recreation. The annual $25 fee for each of the 88 lots now owned by the EDA hasn’t been paid in about 15 years, and other property owners are being forced to maintain the private road without help, he said.

The road accessing the subdivided properties is not a state road, Swiger said, and the responsibility to maintain the access road should be equally split among property owners.

"We’ve struggled along on our own, not trying to be a burden on anyone," Swiger said. "We just want (the EDA) to be property owners in good standing, which means property owners that can use the road."

County Attorney Douglas W. Napier said on Monday that he believes the fees already have been cleared, with the closed plant’s bankruptcy proceedings, filed with the courts in 1999.

Swiger, however, said there is no mention in the bankruptcy agreement of the properties on the west side of the river across from the plant.

Swiger sent a letter on May 30 to Stephen Heavener, executive director of the EDA, asking that the authority stay current with the annual road maintenance, fee, which would cost $2,100 per year for the EDA’s 88 lots. The letter also requests $30,000, the approximate cost of about 15 years of unpaid fees for the properties, Swiger said. He said he has had no response from the EDA.

Heavener said the purchase of the entire 500 acre Avtex site was part of a complex caretaking and cleanup agreement between stakeholders and government agencies. The 70 acre portion that makes up most of the Rivermont Acres subdivision was part of the package deal, as its groundwater also is contaminated, he said.

Eventually, the property will likely be deeded to the state to become part of its parks system, he said.

"Our goal is to own it for as short a time as possible," he said.

Swiger said that he would like to see the EDA either pay the fees or give the owner’s association one or more of its lots in trade so the association can sell them to adjacent landowners and get money to maintain the road. The association already has had to bear much of the cost of two new culverts, he said, and simply wants property owners, including the EDA, to share in the cost of the roads upkeep.

The road is the only way into the property, Swiger said.

"If they’re going to build a park in there, how are they going to get to it, by canoe?" he said.

He said a property owners meeting is scheduled for Aug. 13, and the owners will decide whether to hire legal counsel to place a lien on the property until the back fees are paid.

"All we want them to do is be good neighbors. And for the past 10 years we have not had good neighbors out there."