Tacna road center of fight

Just west of Tacna, hundreds of acres of land lack road access along the north side of County 10th Street from Avenue 36E to approximately 38E.

Many landowners in those subdivisions say they are prohibited from selling their lots or making any developments because the road to their property, County 10th Street, is dirt and does not meet county standards.

The landowners believe the county has the legal responsibility to grant them legal access, upgrade the road to county standards and then add it to its road system for county maintenance. The Yuma County Development Services Planning and Zoning say they are not forcing the landowners to upgrade County 10th street to county standards, instead they discussed the alternatives with the landowners so they can get the legal access needed to their subdivisions.

Landowner Lloyd Southard, said he plans to go to court against the county. Southard said when Interstate 8 was built in the late 1960s, it cut off their legal access to their subdivisions. The county relinquished Avenue 37E, 38E and 39E for the highway to go through and Southard said that the county should have provided a new legal access into their subdivisions back then.

"It's negligence on their part," Southard said. "We just want legal access, we feel entitled and we want them to correct the mistake they made."

Yuma County Engineer Roger Patterson said if the landowners do not want to go to the expense of upgrading the roads to county standards they have the choice to make the roads into private roads. However, that won't place the road into the county road maintenance system, Patterson said.

If the county landowners do want the roads to be placed within the county maintenance system, then the landowners have to upgrade them to county standards which means that it would be at the landowners expense. "We don't bring in a new roadway unless they're improved," he said.

A property owner who owns six or more lots, is considered a developer, and in order to sell any of their lots they need to file a new subdivision report with the Arizona Department of Real Estate, Patterson said. Then the landowners have to convince ADRE that they have permanent access for the protection of the buyers if the road needs future maintenance by the county.

Landowner Allen Brown, said the ADRE told him that there is no permanent access on County 10th Street because it did not meet the qualifications. Brown said those subdivisions didn't need access when they were originally developed and approved.

"That's just wrong," Brown said. "It's called grandfathered, they had 38 years to address this problem and now they say that there is no legal access now?

"We're asking them to do what they're suppose to do," he said.

According to the document sent to Brown from ADRE, if property owners desire to establish permanent access to these subdivisions, ADRE encourages property owners and Yuma County officials to work cooperatively to establish County 10th Street as a legal and dedicated road that meets state requirements for permanent access. In the meantime the two sides are at an impasse.

Landowner Wayne Meyer, said he hasn't been able to sell any of his property. "The county is telling us that we shouldn't even drive in there to go home," Meyer said. "They want us to buy the right-of-way and then it has to meet certain standards on your expense and eventually they'll take it over."


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Stephanie Sanchez can be reached at ssanchez@yumasun.com or 539-6847.