The discussions have been going on since Fishers was a town – what to do about privately owned roads, often in commercial areas, that go into disrepair with the owner not maintaining the roadway.

The Fishers Board of Works & Public Safety started the process of utilizing the Barrett Law in bringing private roads into the city’s inventory, meaning the city would be responsible for maintaining those roads.

Many of these roads are in such disrepair the city does not want to absorb them in their current state, but bring them up to a minimum engineering standard before accepting the roads into municipal responsibility.

The Barrett Law is a legal procedure allowing impacted property owners to pay for items such as road repair.  The city would issue a bond and the impacted property owners would pay off their part of the bond over time.

The bond proceeds would be used to bring the identified roads up to a minimum standard, allowing the city to take the roads into its inventory, meaning the city would be responsible for maintenance from that point on.

City Attorney Chris Greisl told board members the process provided in statutes includes an opportunity for impacted property owners to remonstrate.

Pubic hearings on the Barrett Law will come before the Board of Works, but any bond issuance will go before the City Council.

The board passed a resolution at the Tuesday meeting starting this process.

The resolution listed the following private roads impacted:

• Britton Park Road (north of 135th St)
• Enterprise Drive
• Fishers Crossing Drive (and associated access roads)
• Fishers Landing Drive (and associated access roads)
• Fitness Lane (near 96th and Lantern Rd)
• Parkside Drive
• Publishers Drive
• Trade Center Drive
• Village Square Lane (near Allisonville and Easy St)