No. Brunswick’s path of most resistance
Feud continues over driveway’s connection to neighboring cul-de-sac
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP
Staff Writer

Dorothy McNally’s driveway is still a township controversy. McNally, of Old Georges Road in North Brunswick, recently constructed a driveway extension that leads from her home out into the Shady Glen Drive cul-de-sac. Last week someone wrote expletives in the cement by the curb before it dried.

“Who could be so immature to brazenly write this disgusting graffiti?” McNally asked.

McNally doesn’t know who wrote the foul language, but its appearance came at the end of a long battle with officials and residents to get land she dedicated to the township back.

In 1986, McNally dedicated a 500-foot strip of her property to the township. The property she used as a driveway to her home would, under the provisions of the dedication, become part of a proposed public road that would connect Old Georges Road to the residential development on Shady Glen Drive.

The township never built the road because the Shady Glen Drive residential developer ended his project in a cul-de-sac. The dedicated piece of land remained in limbo and fell into disrepair because neither McNally nor the township maintained it.

After years of hearing McNally complaining about the potholes with stagnant water lining the only access way to her house, Mayor Francis “Mac” Womack said the Township Council attempted to vacate the dedication by way of Ordinance No. 00-30, which was drafted in December 2000. The ordinance said, “The public interest will be better served by releasing the parcel from such a dedication.”

The ordinance recognized that the property was “originally dedicated to the township for use as a street” but “has not been opened as a street by the municipality.”

“For years I fought with them after they decided not to build the proposed connecting road,” McNally said. “They should have returned the dedicated property to me, but they didn’t because of resident complaints.”

Womack said the council tabled the ordinance in December 2000 after he investigated objections from residents on Shady Glen Drive.

Womack said residents did not want the township to vacate the dedication because they did not want McNally to build a driveway into the cul-de-sac. He also said they also did not want her to place her garbage cans on Shady Glen Drive.

“That is the essence of Ms. McNally’s dispute with the neighbors,” Womack said. “Her usage of this piece of property is in question and has caused concern amongst her neighbors.”

In 2003, McNally tried to get the property back again.

She attended numerous Township Council meetings, and Womack met with Shady Glen residents again. At that time, Womack said, residents asked the township to give McNally most of the dedicated land back, but to keep a strip as a buffer that would prevent her from building a driveway. When McNally turned this proposal down, Womack said, the township decided not to vacate the dedication.

After further discussion with Shady Glen residents, then-council President Womack called vacating the dedication “a mistake,” and said, “For the greater good of the neighborhood and the township, we would be making a mistake to change the status of this piece of land.”

At that time, McNally said to the council, “If they are worried that I’m going to put a driveway in there, connecting my house to Shady Glen, they don’t have to.”

On March 12, 2003, McNally received a letter from then-Township Attorney Tom Cafferty. The letter stated, “The council has decided not to move forward with any vacating of the dedicated, but unaccepted street.”

In October 2003, McNally’s neighbor, Guseppi Inzano, took her and the township to court, McNally said.

“He claimed the driveway was a public right of way since the township never vacated the dedication and started using it for his trucks to access his back yard,” McNally said.

After three months of litigation, Superior Court Judge Travis Francis, sitting in New Brunswick, ruled McNally owned and therefore should maintain and pay taxes on the dedicated land.

“The judge actually said I had squatters rights since I’ve undisputedly been using this land for over 20 years,” McNally said.

After the ruling, the township started charging her taxes on the piece of land, McNally said.

“After all of this time, fighting with them for the property back, I’m helping them get the responsibility off of their backs,” McNally said. “They’re charging me $30 a year in taxes for it now.”

Despite McNally’s statement last year that she would not extend the driveway out into the cul-de-sac, on May 13 she went to the township’s Planning Board and received a permit to cut the curb on Shady Glen Drive. She built a driveway extension and uses the curb for her garbage cans when there is a trash pickup.

After the obscenities appeared in the cement, McNally filed a report with the North Brunswick Township Police Department.

“Either someone drove into that cul-de-sac late one night, wrote the words, and drove off without anyone seeing them the night the cement was drying, or someone doesn’t like that I put a driveway in there,” McNally said. “I didn’t destroy the aesthetics of the cul-de-sac with the driveway, the ugly remarks inscribed in the newly poured concrete did.”

Calls to Shady Glen Drive residents about the new driveway went unanswered and messages went unreturned.

Womack said, “If Ms. McNally filed a report with the police, they will handle it.”

He also said the township still has no intention of vacating the dedication.

“Although I’ll maintain it and pay taxes on it, they can still take it to build a road, but that’s all,” McNally said.