DUXBURY — Oct. 19, 2026 — The Duxbury Selectboard voted Monday to sign a roadway covenant for Old Road off North Street that lets the trust owning four house lots along the way improve and pave it at its own expense, while making the trust and future lot owners, not the town, responsible for maintaining it. The vote came after an abutter asked that the abutters’ attorney review the revised covenant.
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The draft covenant posted in the board’s packet, from Old Myrtle Street Realty Trust trustee Susan J. Curtis, makes the developer solely responsible for maintaining Old Road and its drainage and utilities, including snow and ice removal. The town keeps public use of the way and will maintain a planned water line. The obligation runs with the four lots. A review by engineer Patrick G. Brennan describes a 751-foot dead end with a 14-foot travel way.
Michael McGee stepped away before discussion, citing no immediate conflict but past campaign support from Curtis.
Town counsel said the final version, handed out at the meeting, added a reference to the certified town meeting vote on the way’s public status, barred work beyond Station 7-51 on the plan and required the covenant to be recorded before any work begins. Selectboard member Brian Glennon sent town counsel the questions and edits behind those changes.
It was really the two big things I had was the limit of work and confirming that this, in fact, is a public way based upon something before us, and that we as a board are not certifying it as a public way.
— Brian Glennon, Selectboard 1:31:18
The trust’s attorney said the town clerk certified records of an 1812 town meeting vote as true public records on July 7, 2025, and that the town asked for a plan and a covenant guaranteeing it would never pay to maintain the road. Town counsel said the vote describes a road of about 1,000 feet that very likely is this one, though confirming it would take title research. Counsel added that signing would not bind the town to accept the way as public if it is not.
How the existing gravel road was built is disputed. An abutter said a photograph dated Aug. 12 shows the stone wall being moved and that the timeline the board had been given was wrong. The trust’s attorney said the work began in June 2025 and the building commissioner deemed it lawful; Glennon noted that finding assumed the way was private. The town’s public works director, Sheila Sgarzi, said neighbors called Aug. 15, 2025, to report that a contractor had torn through a drain line, and that the line, in the North Street right of way, was believed repaired but no street opening permit was obtained.
Glennon said questions about the earlier work could be set aside for now. After the vote, Glennon asked the board to confirm it had not discussed or absolved anything that may have happened in the past.
Carole Smith, a North Street resident, said a drainage easement carries water under the new gravel road and asked that the covenant acknowledge it. Sgarzi offered to run a camera through the drain to confirm it is intact. Glennon said the board was not adjudicating any easements.
The abutter asked that the abutters’ attorney, who was not present, get a chance to review late filings and respond, possibly next week. The trust’s attorney called that a delay tactic that would keep the trust from paving or installing its water line this year. The abutter said the request was not meant to delay. Selectboard member Cynthia Ladd Fiorini said the board had already given abutters two weeks and that remaining questions about other matters did not concern the covenant. Glennon was reluctant to continue the matter again, saying solicited comments raised nothing new about the document.
A second town attorney said the covenant waives no regulatory requirements, so wetland work still must go before the Conservation Commission. Town counsel called the covenant as protective of the town as it can be and said it bars this owner from extending the road but does not bind future boards. The motion passed unanimously with the three members present, the presiding member announced.
