Guest Commentary: “Your Website Made Me Look at My Own Road District”
The following was submitted by a reader from another road district in the northern Black Hills. The author asked to remain anonymous.
I stumbled across this website while researching South Dakota road districts.
At first, I assumed the issues discussed here were unique to Saddleback Road District. I honestly thought this was simply a dispute between neighbors.
Then I started looking at my own road district.
I wish I hadn’t.
Like many people, I assumed a road district existed to maintain roads. I expected graders, gravel, snow removal, culverts, and maybe speed limits. That’s about it.
Instead, I found pages of regulations, permit requirements, fees, applications, and approvals that looked far more like something I would expect from a homeowners’ association than a governmental entity created to maintain roads.
After reading the discussion on this website about Dillon’s Rule and the limited powers granted to road districts, I started asking a simple question:
Where, exactly, is the authority for all of this?
For example, my road district has adopted regulations requiring permits before constructing access to district roads.
Applicants may be required to submit traffic studies, drainage plans, revegetation plans, development plans, proof of liability insurance, construction traffic control plans, and whatever additional information the board considers “relevant and necessary.”
The district reserves the authority to approve or deny applications, revoke permits, require removal of access points, require roadway improvements, and shift various costs to property owners.
It has also adopted a minimum construction fee for new construction within the district.
I am not saying these things are unlawful. However, I think they are.
I am simply asking where the Legislature granted a road district these powers.
I have searched SDCL Chapter 31-12A and cannot find broad authority allowing road districts to create their own regulatory code governing private development.
Perhaps those statutes exist elsewhere.
If they do, I would genuinely like someone to point them out.
Another thing that surprised me was how much the district resembles a homeowners’ association.
There are published rules.
There are regulations.
There are permits.
There are approvals.
There are fees.
There are restrictions affecting private property.
Yet this is not a homeowners’ association.
I never agreed to restrictive covenants.
I never signed an agreement allowing a neighborhood board to regulate my property.
This is a governmental entity whose authority comes from the Legislature.
That distinction seems important.
Reading this website convinced me that these questions deserve answers.
I have contacted my own state senator and representatives and asked them to review whether the authority for these regulations actually exists within South Dakota law.
If the Legislature intended road districts to possess these powers, perhaps the statutes should make that much clearer.
If it did not, perhaps the limits of a road district’s authority should also be clarified.
Either way, I appreciate the work this website has done.
Whether one agrees with every conclusion or not, it encouraged at least one other South Dakota property owner to begin reading the statutes for myself instead of assuming every local government only exercises powers that have actually been granted to it.
That, in my opinion, is time well spent.