The city is considering a process for determining which private roads should be accepted for plowing. Of four recent applicants, only one has will be plowed this winter. The others opted to stay with a private service.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — After the City Council approved a number of private ways for plowing, councilors are looking into a formal process for the designation.

The Public Works and Utilities subcommittee earlier this week mapped out a timeline for creating an ordinance to designate streets for snow removal. Though the matter was tabled at this meeting, it expects to have it completed and ordained by March in advance of the 2023 winter season.

Commissioner of Public Services and Utilities Ricardo Morales made this recommendation after finding that some of these ways are not accessible to the public and, therefore, not eligible under the state statute.

He suggested that road design, the degree that the road handles traffic, the relative number of residents using the road, and the length of road per resident should be considered.

Morales added that the timing of the request should also be a factor, as streets being added just before the winter season was a bit "chaotic" in terms of the department’s preparations.

"These are things that we should be considering as a city if we are going to make a decision for a street to be plowed or not that is private," he explained, adding that the recommendations all follow a law established in 1943 that requires the road to serve the public as a means of transportation and be open to the public.

In the last few months, the council has voted to include streets on four private developments per the request of residents: Walden Lane, Alpine Trail, Woodmonte Estates, and Churchill Crest.

Morales reportedly had limited time to discuss the first proposal before it was voted on but later spoke to the ward councilors and found that there was no formal process.

Within the sets of approvals, there were streets with "private property" signage and a security gate that keeps the public out. 

"Only when they were put forward and voted on did I have to essentially go through and find out how am I going to deal with streets that are not accessible to the public," he said.

"And finding out in that way that in fact, if it's not accessible to the public it shouldn't be plowed by the city, by the municipality."

Since the adoption of those streets, the city has been plowing Walden Lane. Alpine Trail opted out to stay with a private contractor, and Woodmonte Estates and Churchill Crest — managed by the same company — are in communications with the city and are still being plowed privately.

Ward 4 Councilor James Conant and Ward 3 Councilor Kevin Sherman wanted to make sure that residents of the private ways were properly communicated with and know that the city does not handle snow removal on driveways and sidewalks as private contractors do.

"We had a discussion about how we wouldn't be doing their driveways, we weren't doing their sidewalks. That was part of the reason why one of them backed out. The other one doesn't allow parking on any of their roadways within their community and has waterfront access and didn't want to allow the public the ability to park on their street and have access to the water so they also backed out," Ward 5 Councilor Pat Kavey clarified.

"But we did have these discussions at first. Both of them had asked me to move forward with it anyways and said that they would discuss it amongst themselves and then once one was approved, they let us know that they weren't going to move forward, it made more sense to go with a private contractor," he said.

"So we have been trying to give them realistic expectations and they still wanted to go forward at first until they really thought about it and spoke amongst the people, the residents, and their communities and then they decided against it."

Ward 1 Councilor Kenneth Warren pointed out that there is a related workshop at the Massachusetts Municipal Association meeting in January and suggested that the councilors table the matter until after the event so they can include what they learned from it.

He said communities across the state are adopting processes for designating private ways for plowing and it would be helpful to see what others are doing.

There was some conversation about whether or not a dead-end street would be considered a private way and councilors argued that the type of street still provides access to homes and businesses.

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