So I'm exploring this past weekend. I take Jones Ferry Rd. through Carrboro and over University Lake and then I turn right onto Old Greensboro Rd. I go a few miles and I make a right onto Neville Rd. I had never been out there before. I was just exploring. I saw a left with a street sign so I decided to take it. I turned left from Neville Rd. onto Farmstead Dr.
After I turn onto Farmstead Dr., perhaps 100-150 feet ahead I see signs that say "Keep Out" and "No Trespassing." There is nothing else on the road before those signs. I guess that means it's a town road for 100-150 feet and then it magically becomes someones driveway.
I had two choices at that point. One was to go onto this persons property and turn around and I figured I shouldn't do that since there was not one but two signs warning me to stay away. My other choice was to back out onto Neville Rd. The length of visibility was pretty good because the road was straight but at the same time the fact that the road was straight meant that other cars would be barrelling ass on it.
I held my breath and backed out quickly and put it into drive quickly and made it okay. But I don't think that I or anyone should have to do that. How can you turn onto a road with a road sign and then get stuck like that?
There are lots of places in town in roughly the same vein. If you go out Gimghoul Rd and go to the end where the Catholic Church used to be on the right, and then you can go straight and go out to that castle, or so I hear, but I've never done it because it looks like someones driveway or private property, but there's no sign. There should be a sign or else it should be fair game.
If you take East Rosemary St to the end it just becomes a dirt road. Is that town property or a driveway? It doesn't say (or at least it didn't the last time I was there a few years ago) but it looks like a driveway and so I didn't go down it. But if it's a town road I ought to be able to.
I was exploring by car in that same general area, behind Rosemary St a few years ago and the raod simply became someones driveway. The road was paved and I was driving and the next thing I knew, there was someones garage in front of me and I was in someones driveway. I started to turn around but there wasn't too much space and it looked like the land just dropped off at the end of the driveway and I sure didn't want to miscalculate and go rolling down an unknown hill through the woods in my car. It took my about a dozen pull forward-pull back manuevers before my car was turned around and I could leave. While I was doing it a woman came out of the house...I don't know if she was coming outside anyway or if she saw some strange car in her driveway doing silly things and thought she should investigate.
But regardless, I felt ridiculous, and it shouln't be that way. When you're driving on a town street you shouldn't suddenly be stuck like that. It seems there are lots of places like that in this area.
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agree
i have concerns here too. The simple answer to your question is that property divides itself very gradually and in varying ways through the years, footpaths become dirt roads, dirt becomes gravel, parts of counties are annexed for different reasons and at different stages of economic health, dirt roads are "grandfathered" because no one complains or there are some legal reasons too not to pave a road in the middle of a city. Its far from a perfect science. What really bugs me is that in some cases it is because there is some under the table relationship with the city (or around here the university) that causes variances to be overlooked, and the public put in danger. Such is the case with Gimghoul Rd. Friends of the university, secret fraternity of rich kids, whatever... Gimghoul road and the public road at the end that most do not even know the name of (because there is no sign) is dangerous. It exists because the group that owns the castle donated the land around it to the university a long time ago. A somewhat more obscure example of how a public road is created, the state likely gave Gimghoul castle an easement across the land that, after the donation of all the land around the castle to the government, then would have been university owned land. Law says that no property can be without access to a pulic road. I am not sure why this deal would have been structured this way, unless the driveway piece was adjusted later, as you would think the castle would have preferred to own the drive itself, and keep it legally dark and unsafe. What you have now is a privately owned historic landmark and favorite late night hang out spot for high school kids, with an unmarked public road leading right up to it, no road sign to identify it as a public road or advise how to navigate, but only misleading one at the bottom of that road- keep out- private property. I run in that neighborhood occasionally and know that at the top of the unmarked, gravel, public road, there is a loop that redirects a traveler back in the direction they came. Near the front of the castle the gravel road connects to a large undisscernable gravel parking lot- which actually is private property. It is dark up there at night and there is no way to know where public/private boundaries are. To your point about unpredictable situations occuring, an out of towner that had heard of the Gimghoul landmark was recently arrested for assault after he hit one of the Gimghoul castle guys that ran out of the house trying to scare him off. He apparently stepped on the gas when this guy came running at his car, and bumped the guy..or so i understand. I do not think anytone was injured but I can only imagine how this situation must have happened up there at the end of that road with no lights ... and also how much worse it could have been. I cant imagine how i would feel if some guy came running out of a haunted castle at me. I have always thought that the place was used for parties and that no one lives there permanently (even though I thought their zoming ordinance required there to be a permanent resident) but if there is a regular guard on duty these days, I just hope youngsters do not still go up there as much as I did in high school or this is going to happen again and again until someone actually tells the Gimghoul gang that they cannot have their state-owned accident trap free of signs and at least a few lights- no matter how much it ruins there motif. So in some cases, the roads are what they are because someone wants them that way. I would imagine there are a few people out in the country or perhaps in the other places that you mentioned that would prefer the road not be paved for this same level of ... security that it achieves in Gimghouls case. Unfortunately and as you mentioned, it is we the people that are being intentionally evaded in some instances and put at risk by these situations.When I checked a few years ago, the Gimghoul Castle's tax value was about the same as most houses in the area, even though.. well, afterall it is a castle. beyond that- it is a commercial property and should have more value- a lot more i think. I read about their special zoning when the castle somehow evaded having sprinklers put in after the frat house fire here in town- claiming the facility is zoned differently than the other fraternity houses because there not many permanent residents, even though the only purpose of the building is keg parties. At least in this one case you mentioned, it is pretty clear to me that one of these Gimghoul guys has a friend downtown and can order up an unsafe road if they would like. On thing you didnt mention is what happens in an emergency in these places? Who would get fired if the Gimghoul Castle caught fire during a fraternity party, exits were not labeled inside the property, people were confused leaving the grounds, people were hurt or killed. The city is liable because even though firefighters were right on time, a claim was made that they might have been there faster if the public road that the burning castle was technically located was labeled with a road sign.
oops
yes proofreading is a problem for me.