Green View Drive in Loudon meanders through one of the town's prettiest development communities, winding past the Loudon Country Club golf course before climbing to a quiet cul-de-sac.

But this stretch of road, home to just over two dozen houses, has been the subject of a yearlong lawsuit that pits a group of residents against the town over whether the road should be made public.

As a private road, Green View Drive does not receive snow plowing or other maintenance services from the town. A row of mailboxes lines the entrance - as far as the postal service goes - making for at least a 1-mile trek for those living near the end of the street. In the mornings, parents wait with their children on nearby Voted Road for the school bus, hoping that if Green View were made public the bus would incorporate a stop on their street.

"People are just fed up," said resident Michael Currier. "We're all fed up with being abandoned."

Residents of 18 households on Green View Drive filed a petition against the town in November 2008 to make the road public, the second such petition filed in the last five years. For the second time, their petition was denied.

The town argues that the road, which was first planned in 1996 and built in three phases, was always intended to be private by its original developer, former country club owner William Crowley, and should remain that way.

"It was set up as a private road," Selectmen Chairman Dustin Bowles said. "It's pretty simple."

"All of the documents of the Planning Board, plans recorded in the registry of deeds, and original deeds were consistent: Green View Drive was identified as a private subdivision road," Barton Mayer, an attorney representing the town, wrote in an April explanation of the board's denial of the petition.

But the petitioning residents argue that they bought the houses in the community, which has sprung up around the golf course over the last 10 years, believing the road would eventually be made public. Though not a resident, Crowley's widow, Claire, is included in the list of those petitioning the town.

Residents were "expressly or impliedly induced" to buy homes on the road with the anticipation of "probable acceptance" of Green View Drive as a public road because it was built to town specifications, Don Gartrell, a Concord attorney hired by the residents to represent them, wrote in his appeal of the board's decision.

"When I bought the house, the Realtor said it was in the works - that in a short time it would be a public road," said Charles Owens, 74, who moved into the house at the end of the street last year.

Loudon officials have argued that the town's requirement of minimum standards for the construction of the road was not done with the purpose of later accepting the road as public.

The appeal filed by the residents also states that Green View Drive residents pay property taxes similar to other Loudon residents who receive full town services on their road.

"We pay taxes, but we don't belong to the town," Owens said.

The town and the group of petitioning residents are not the only parties with an interest in the road.

Single page