Last month, Bill Hamilton Sr. wanted to plant cattails to spruce up the ditch created by the Town of Melbourne Beach to help reduce flooding on the northern end of Hibiscus Trail. But the ditch and the cast iron grate that rested on one end of it were not on Hamilton’s property, although you’d never know that on first glance.
“I thought it was my property,” said Hamilton, a longtime homeowner who instead had the plants placed at the edge of what belongs to him.
Beachside municipalities such as Melbourne Beach and Indialantic retain the right-of-way not only on the street but for a certain portion on the land beyond the paving, land some homeowners might consider theirs.
“We own 25 feet from the center of the roadway on either side,” said Melbourne Beach Town Manager Tim Day. “We need the right-of-way for storm water improvements, utility poles or sidewalks.”
According to Chris Chinault, Indialantic town manager, most of the municipal rights-of-way are 60 feet in width even though the streets themselves are just around 20 feet, with the rest extending to the grassy sides of the properties. Some rights-of-way are as little as 40 feet while others are 80 feet.
“Any resident who looks at his/her boundary survey when a house is purchased will clearly visualize the limits of his/her property,” Chinault said.
In Indialantic, if a resident desires to plant vegetation such as a bush or shrub in the town right-of-way, the resident needs approval from the Public Works Director. “In some areas, there could be conflict with utilities like a water line, sewer line, storm sewer line or fiber optic line,” Chinault said. “Or the resident might want to plant vegetation that, depending on location, could grow to obstruct a stop sign. Or the vegetation could grow into the paved portion of the right-of-way and become an obstruction to the motoring public.”
Numerous Melbourne Beach residents have installed boulders or bushes in the right-of-way regardless of the legality. But if a problem develops, the homeowner has to remove the boulder or tree or the town will. “It may come up when we do a drainage project or a sidewalk. If we do a sidewalk down Pine Street it will be an issue,” Day said.
Honor Murphy and her husband, Patrick, were aware that a portion of what appears to be their front yard was municipal land. But they were unaware just how much until the town put in the ditch and two grates in front of the house they lived in for 23 years.
She says the grates seem much too big for the problem.
“Legally they have the right to do it. But the ditch is so steep and so long. It’s not safe for the kids to play near there. It probably affects our property value,” Murphy said.
And the ditch didn’t entirely solve the problem.
“We’d get a puddle after a rain but it was gone in 30 minutes. It would percolate back into the ground. Now the water sits in those grates.”
Day says the town held public meetings for the drainage project, which is some three years old, but no one showed up.
Heidi Betts has lived on Hibiscus Trail for 11 years and flooding has never been a real problem for her. They bought a property with a stone wall demarcating where the municipal portion began.
“We didn’t want the ditches,” Betts said. “But now we have standing water in the ditches and we see an increase in the number of mosquitoes.”