Ellsworth isn’t sure how to deal with the leaky water pipe installed by a deceased developer

Residents on an Ellsworth street have a leak in their water main and want the city to fix the problem.

But Ellsworth officials say they can’t make the repairs because the city doesn’t own the leaking pipe, even though it connects directly to the local water system and carries city water to residents.

So who owns the line that supplies the homes on Brae Drive if not the city? This answer is not clear. But for the street’s dozen or so residents, the confusion highlighted the challenges that can arise when a private developer lays out a street and builds homes but then dies without ensuring that another company will be responsible for the new neighborhood’s infrastructure .

“A lot of people are losing sleep over this,” Jack Frost, who lives on Brae Drive, said of himself and his neighbors Wednesday. “How do I get out of this situation?”

Frost and a handful of Brae Drive residents met with city officials Tuesday to discuss their predicament and see if there could be a solution to who will maintain the main water and sewer lines to the street. City Manager Charlie Pearce and department heads who met with the group made no promises but said they would review the matter to see if the city could help develop a solution.

Brae Drive, located just yards from the city’s elementary and middle schools, is a private road built in the 1980s by a now-deceased developer, Frost said. The same developer also incorporated Holt Drive and Argonne Street, which run parallel to Brae Drive. However, these were later accepted by the city as city streets. Brae Drive was not.

Brae Drive is too narrow to meet city standards, and the water and sewer systems that serve the homes were built so haphazardly – with a manhole entrance in someone else’s yard and part of the main sewer running under someone else’s garage – that this is also the case does not comply with city regulations.

Still, Brae Drive residents say the city has made repairs to the water main in the past, but current officials say their hands are tied. The Maine Public Utilities Commission has told Ellsworth officials that the city cannot touch the line because it is private, even though it is directly connected to the city water system.

“I understand what they’re dealing with,” Frost said. “I’m not trying to be unreasonable.”

Because it is a private road, Brae Drive residents do not receive mail service directly to their homes. Instead, the U.S. Postal Service delivers mail to a delivery stand located where the street meets Forest Avenue. In the winter, some of them donated a plow truck to clear snow from the street, Frost said.

The deeds for the properties on Brae Drive do not give the homeowners ownership of the road, Frost said, and they do not have the money to make major repairs to the road or to the water and sewer lines. Additionally, most properties are too small to permit wells or septic tanks — but septic tanks wouldn’t be allowed anyway because state law requires homeowners to connect them to municipal sewer lines no more than 200 feet from their home are.

Frost said he and his wife have owned their home for 29 years. They think the road and the pipes beneath it are generally in good shape, but they want there to be a plan to maintain it before a bigger, more expensive problem arises and then fades away because no one has the resources or the resources has authority to fix it.

Frost pointed to the city’s interest in developing an access road to a potential new courthouse and other properties on Merrill Way as an example of how the city can help private landowners. At the very least, he would like to see the city take ownership of the water and sewer lines on Brae Drive or obtain an easement to maintain them.

“I really like my house,” said Frost, who works for a local bank and is chairman of the board of the local chamber of commerce. “My wife and I really like the place where we live.”

City officials said they were exploring whether they could possibly repair the pipe under an emergency provision that would not conflict with Maine’s PUC bans on investing public money in private water systems. They’re also trying to figure out whether the road can be classified as abandoned rather than just privately owned, and whether that might give them more options for water line maintenance.

Pearce said since Brae Drive residents brought the issue to his attention in the fall, he has learned a lot about how private development and public infrastructure fit together. He said the city may not be able to take over the private infrastructure on Brae Drive – and it needs to be careful about setting a precedent – but he would be happy to help residents if there was a reasonable way to do so.

“It’s a difficult situation,” Pearce said. “You can’t always give people the answer they want.”