RISON - The Cleveland County Quorum Court is considering a new ordinance proposed by County Judge Jimmy Cummings that would set guidelines on any road that is accepted in the county's road system.
Cummings proposed the ordinance during the quorum court's regular monthly meeting Monday night. He handed out copies of the proposed ordinance for the justices of the peace to review. No action was taken on it Monday night, but Cummings said he will bring it up again at the Sept. 5 meeting. While the county does have an ordinance on the book concerning logging roads, Cummings said a review of the county's existing codes by the Association of Arkansas Counties did not find one for the standards a road must meet in order for it to be accepted into the county road system.
Cummings said what brought the matter to his attention was that a local land developer recently approached him about taking in the roads he was building for housing lots. Cummings told the court he informed the developer that he would not accept the roads into the county road system for now.
After review road ordinances from other counties. Cummings said the one he presented Monday was modeled after the ordinances that are being used in Conway and Grant Counties, which he considered to be the best he had come across. The road guidelines submitted to the quorum court for consideration included a minimum right-of-way of 50 feet with the road itself being at least 26 feet wide with a crown height of 3 inches. The road would have to have ditches that are a minimum of 1 foot, 6 inches deep, and any culverts used along the road would have to be a minimum of 24 inches.
In addition, construction of the road will need to have 4 inches of compacted sub-grader material before applying a gravel base. For the gravel base will be built using 6 inches of compacted gravel base or 5 inches of compacted SB-2.
Any hard surfaced road (concrete, asphalt, chip seal, etc.) must ...
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