CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – There is an endless cycle of frustration for people living in one eastern Mecklenburg County neighborhood.
The Rocky Ridge community off Albemarle Road and Rocky River Church Road is littered with potholes, and for years homeowners have tried and failed to get someone to maintain their roads.
Each year new people are buying homes there, without knowing the issue. The neighborhood is in an unincorporated area of the county outside the City of Charlotte.
The developer never turned the responsibility of looking after the roads over to the NC Department of Transportation (NCDOT), and since the late 1990s, no one has been maintaining these roads.
“It’s dangerous,” Todd Knock, who bought a home in the neighborhood in 2023, said.
Knock and several other neighbors invited WBTV to see the issue firsthand, all desperate for a solution.
“I have gotten rocks and tried to fill in the potholes,” homeowner Jerry Robinson said. “It really wasn’t this big, but now that it’s gotten out of control, it really doesn’t really help that much.”
Property records show developer Don Galloway Homes of North Carolina first sold houses in the neighborhood in the late 1990s. According to state records, that company has since been dissolved.
“I’ve called the city, I’ve called the state, I’ve called the county with no luck at all,” Knock said.
He has not had any luck because none of those agencies are required to maintain it.
Throughout the years, neighbors have held meetings to discuss the issue and state legislation was even introduced to address orphan roads, but nothing has moved forward and nothing has changed.
“So we’re, you know, between a rock and a pothole,” Knock said.
According to NCDOT, there are more than 7,500 orphan roads within subdivisions in the state of North Carolina.
People living on them have a few options:
- Homeowners outside of city limits can apply to get a neighborhood annexed.
- Homeowners can seek a special assessment for street improvements by the county.
“You can go around the neighborhood and [get] signature[s] of 75% of the homeowners [for an assessment], but 75% of these homes are probably not owned by homeowners,” Knock said.
Corporate landlords have taken over about a quarter of the homes in the subdivision.
Homeowners said they were unaware of the issue they were inheriting when they purchased their homes. They claim realtors did not notify them, and many of them missed the sign that reads “Street Maintenance Ends Here.” Many said they are considering moving, and hoping for more transparency for future home buyers.
“Not once was this issue brought up when we bought, and that’s why we’re standing here today,” Knock said.
Consumer investigator Caroline Hicks reached out to the North Carolina Real Estate Commission and the NC Realtors Association, to find out whether realtors are required to disclose such information to homeowners.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the North Carolina Real Estate Commission told WBTV:
“Brokers are not trained to search titles or determine whether or not there is a road maintenance agreement for private roads. Brokers advertising properties as having either public or private road access must verify the accuracy of their advertising.
A broker advertising a property as having a private road should inquire with the seller as to whether or not there is a road maintenance agreement in place and obtain a copy for the buyer. Brokers representing buyers should make inquiries about road maintenance agreements if they are not provided.
Any broker who is uncertain of the status of the access road should check with NCDOT and document their verification in case there is an issue later.
When complaints are received about these types of matters, the Commission considers all of the facts the broker(s) knew or should have known about the access.”
In the meantime, neighbors in Rocky Ridge are considering raising whatever funds they can to get someone to fix the largest pothole, which they say is only a short-term solution.
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