R’boro board OKs easement, clears way for new trail

ROSEBORO — In order to continue progress on the new Mountain-To-Sea trail, an easement for the property has become a necessity. The town board recognized that need last week and approved the easement.

The issue was broached at last week’s commissioners meeting when Greg Butler made a presentation to the board. Butler noted in his discussion that the easement would allow the town to take ownership of the roughly five-mile stretch of the estimated 30-foot wide easement which was to be turned into a destination spot.

“The property is just off Will Road, that’s across the street from the elementary school; at this point, (it) has been part of the Roberts’ estate,” Butler explained. “What’s happening now is that we’re moving forward with an agreement, and the town of Roseboro is part of this; that’s why we’re coming to you now.

“The plan right now is that the owners would sell an easement across that property, coming out on Will Road and down near the creek,” he continued. It goes all the way down to where there’s a low spot where the end of the field is behind the school.”

Butler said that area would also made into a trail which could be used to help further market the space.

“It would start at the county park and run through the woods along the edge of the tree line. It would come out at that park on the far end … that would be a trail there,” he said. “Ultimately, the hope would be to be able to get across the next section of the trail and to end up over on Butler Island Road. With that, you’ll possibly have some areas where people can park, but this could become a destination, not only local people but, certainly, something for people coming from all over the place.

Butler pointed out the the town would have an area between three and five miles long, from White Roads Road all the way to Will Road. “It’s off the highway as well so it would be an awesome area that we can really market,” he stressed.

He also offered details about the easement and the reason he was requesting the town board approve it.

“So what we’re coming here today for is this, and I have here a draft that’s been done,” he said. “It’s basically saying that the grantors would be the owners of the property who would grant an easement across that property in perpetuity. And I forgot to mention, but as an organization the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail cannot own or maintain anything. That is the reason it’s been brought to the town.

“It’s the same thing with the parking lot over by White Ridge Road; it’s going to be owned by the county, because they (MST) just don’t have the ability to own things. So what we’re asking is that the town take possession and own the easement because of that.”

Butler also mentioned that the easement would come at no cost to the town. The Friends of the MST are purchasing the property, and handling any construction, or maintenance, that needs to be done.

“The towns not going to be obligated to do anything other than own the easement,” he pointed out. “Roseboro isn’t going to have, nor will it be expected, to do anything. The MST, if this easement is granted, would designate the trail, build it, clear any area needed to make a path and maintain it though volunteers and things like that.

“Taking ownership of it is all that’s needed since the MST can’t own it, and, obviously, if there’s any kind of language that needs to be changed the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail council and also the grantors will work through that, so that’s where we are.

“At this point, we’re just coming to the board to ask that you be willing to accept, if we can work it out with the land owner, because if it’s finalized, this is something that’s going to happen in the next, probably, month, to get this done,” he added. “They would then grant easement to the town, and then Roseboro would take possessions of this little sliver of land.”

The question was raised as to the obligation the town would have if any incident occured should the easement be accepted.

“I have to look closer at this,” noted town attorney Sandy Sanderson. “It’s pretty detailed but usually you don’t have a lot of obligations with an easement, other than not to interfere with the rest of the landowners property,” Sanderson said. “Typically that also means that they can’t interfere with the use of your easement.

“I guess one of the things that kind of jumps out to me, and I don’t know if the Mountain-To-Sea Trail folks have done this in general, is that, typically, when you’re doing an easement, you would have like a survey, so you know exactly where the easement is.”

Butler said that was in the works and would be fleshed out as the trail got closer to completion.

“That is still in flux; we tried hacking through the area back in August and I just about died,” Butler said, laughing. “I think, as we get a little closer and it cools down a little bit, we’ll go through and get it marked so in the final version there should be a survey that will say this is where it’ll be.

“…There needs to be some flexibility in the easement, depending on who might buy the property. That’s for, say, if there were somebody to come in and buy it and want to put in housing. They would need the flexibility to be able to say to move it because it would work better someplace else, opposed to where it’ll be now. We talked about that with them, about doing that, and so there’s some language that needs to be tweaked some still.”

“We’ll have a general area where it’s going to go and then we’ll sort of set it out but we need to be able to be flexible, because of whatever uses could come next, as it will be coming up for sale soon.”

Another inquiry was into what potential liability issues the town could face should something happen while they own the easement.

“The only potential problem would be if the trail was not maintained well and if someone were injured on the trail because it was not maintained well,” Sanderson said. “Then there could be a a small amount of potential for liability, but the town does have an insurance policy so that would concern me a lot less than a lot of other things the town does. I mean, the danger on that would be a lot smaller than, say, when we’re having alcohol involved in something, so this would be much, much lower on the worry scale.”

He continued, “Still, we can can discuss and tweak language, but in terms of a liability standpoint, it’s a low issue for me on this one.”

“To add to that, this is just an easement so the town isn’t locked into it forever,” Butler added. “I mean, because of that we can just give the land back to the landowner if you don’t want it anymore for whatever reason.”