When soon-to-be residents of Lakemoore subdivision in north Warren County began buying lots that had been cleared for timber, they knew serenity in their new neighborhood would come with a price.

What they didn’t know was that their attempts to pay for paving the 1.7 miles of the subdivision’s main roads, Rollingwood Drive and Hidden Oaks Lane, would take a decade.

Last week, the Warren County Board of Supervisors paid off loans for those roads and began anew talks of using the same funding and paving program in other places where developers did not complete roads to county standards and left homeowners to deal with the consequences.

“What we knew up front was that what we were getting was a dust cover,” said Michael Stewart, a retired Army Corps specialist who lives in Lakemoore.

But for Stewart, who fished in the subdivision’s private lake as a youngster, the price was not enough to stop him and his wife from purchasing an acre of waterfront property in 1994 and becoming active in the homeowners association.

In the end, the paving project cost property owners an average of $423.18 each year for 10 years, and nearly $100,000 all told.

Supervisors utilized a sparingly used state law that allows residents to pay for their own road improvements and bring the roads up to a standard that the county can and will accept — and then maintain them.

Under the law, at least half the landowners in a developed neighborhood may petition a county to survey and estimate the costs of replacing gravel or dirt roads with asphalt, concrete or other durable material as long as the road is already maintained with tax dollars.

The next step comes when at least 60 percent sign a second petition to pay for the work on their own, in a lump sum or through a special assessment on property taxes that follows the property regardless of who moves in or out. Participation by Lakemoore’s 23 property owners the second time around was 100 percent, said Carol Watkins, treasurer of the homeowners association.

The law allows counties to borrow money, including interest, in advance of collecting the taxes to cover it.

Records show Warren County borrowed $97,331.53 to pay for the double bituminous surface treatment, a thinner driving surface than asphalt surfaces laid on major highways. The paving and the loan payments from the county to the bank began in 2000 after the first petition was tabled in 1993. Supervisors OK’d the final $9,731.83 payment Monday. Among Lakemoore’s 23 property owners who paid for the road improvement tax over time did so according to how much their property fronted Rollingwood and Hidden Oaks, which varies greatly with each curve of the road.

Stewart said paying in one lump sum was quicker, while others picked up the taxes after moving into the neighborhood.

“Yep,” said Linda Hughey, who moved into Lakemoore about a decade ago. “We moved in and (the assessment) came with it.”

The roads are just 2 inches thick in some sections and vary in width. Steep dips near the lake dam demand slowing a vehicle down to an angled crawl to avoid scrapes. Still, periodic patching of potholes in the surface by county road crews have helped maintain the roads “pretty well,” Stewart said.

Passage of the current subdivision ordinance in 2004 firmed up construction, drainage and elevation standards on new developments, but left completed areas like Lakemoore as-is. Its stricter guidelines would work against bringing roads in similar shape up to maintenance standards if built today.

District 1 Supervisor David McDonald has encouraged more areas to use the private funding petition process as a way to speed up road improvements, particularly where developments have stalled because of financial problems with developers. Parts of Pebble Beach Drive, parts 11 and 12 of Fairways, Amberleaf and Brandi Lane subdivisions have been singled out as prime candidates for the option. Supervisors have said an attorney general’s opinion might clarify terms in the petition statute, such as “developed subdivision,” ostensibly to set a minimum size to developments that might petition.

“We’re very, very excited — this is excellent news,” Realtor and Lakemoore resident Vanessa Leech said of the impending end to the road assessment, adding the process began “when we realized we were being taxed as if we were paved.”

Paying more taxes to apply even the most basic riding surface to pockmarked Rocky Lane in south Warren County would excite William Clark, who has fought and researched in vain to improve the half-mile stretch of washed-out gravel lined mostly with double-wide mobile homes and a few vacant lots.

“It’s terrible,” Clark said, picking small bushings left by vehicles that have scraped undercarriages as drivers tried to maneuver around craters up to a foot deep.

Runoff from Glass Road and any significant rainfall in short time spans easily overwhelm two shallow drainage ditches leading to and alongside Rocky, worsening driving conditions and costing Clark thousands to supply more gravel.

“I probably spent $4,000 on gravel,” Clark said. “It got potholed back up again.”

Maintenance of Rocky Lane fell to the residents after money ran short for its developer and conditions slipped into serious disrepair. It’s a scenario reflected in small subdivisions across Warren County. Superficial reinforcements to the road’s entrance have washed away too easily to keep the holes from re-forming, Clark said.

District 4 Supervisor Bill Lauderdale said the issue will continue to be one dictated by money more than any ordinance and said he empathizes with people living in areas “where they know no one’s maintaining the road.”

“We’ve been talking about Pebble Beach, you know, to get some kind of binding agreement,” Lauderdale said. “We just can’t accept any (private roads) because it’s a conflict with our ordinance. If we had the money to accept all of the roads out there, we would do it in a heartbeat. We need some good growth that lasts a while.”

Annual updates on road conditions outside the city have only just begun, as routine paving on county-maintained roads has trailed off since 2007.

Parts of Tucker and Eagle Lake Shore roads were re-paved in 2009. Both were sections for which the county receives improvement funds from the Mississippi Department of Transportation Office of State Aid Road Construction. Size- and population-determined cuts of state aid money for Warren County has decreased more than 30 percent in the past four years.

At least 13 small and large subdivisions have had final plats approved since an aggressive letter-writing campaign in the summer of 2008 threatened legal action in county court for developers found to be in violation of the ordinance.

However, an equal number of them have not reported, making them subject to injunctions by county engineers.

Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com