Kathy Kenfield of SI Company, property manager of the Columbia Center business park in Pittsfield Township, stands in front of a stretch of county-owned road the company is paying to repair. Dan Meisler | For AnnArbor.com

With funding for road work waning in Washtenaw County, private individuals and groups are now more frequently opting to simply pay for road repairs themselves - either through special assessment districts or outright payments.

Paving over gravel roads was often funded privately in years past, said Roy Townsend, Washtenaw County highway engineer. But over the past year, the Washtenaw County Road Commission has seen its first two privately funded road repair projects, he said.

Private individuals aren't allowed to simply hire an asphalt company to repair county-owned roads; instead, they must go through the road commission and township boards to bid the work.

In recent months, that's happened in at two industrial parks in Pittsfield Township, and residential subdivisions in Scio and Pittsfield townships. At least one more is in the pipeline in Scio.

Townsend said the bottom-line reason is funding. The road commission earlier this month approved service level adjustments in response to decreasing money from the state.

"(County) road funding has been declining every year since 2004," he said.

Dick Sarns, owner of the Columbia Center research park on Venture Drive in Pittsfield Township, said he asked the county and township whether they had the $20,000 needed to repave a troublesome 80 feet of road in the more-than-20-year-old development. Both jurisdictions said no.

So the next step was to pay for the repaving himself, he said - given his sense of responsibility to the businesses in the park, including NuStep, a manufacturer of recumbent cross trainers, and Control Gaging.

"They flatly said they didn't have the money for repairs," he said. "All I'm interested in is getting the road fixed."

Venture Drive east of State Street in Pittsfield Township

The county had patched the stretch of road many times. Sarns said the section was built over unstable soil, and had stabilizing reinforcement materials built in from the beginning.

Kathy Kenfield, property manager of the park for SI Company, credited township officials with guiding her through the process. The project received approval from the road commission and township board.

Townsend said the price tag of the work on Venture is much smaller than some privately funded plans for residential subdivisions - some of which reach near $300,000. He said the trend toward private funding is likely to continue, considering the state budget situation. The road commission gets much of its money from state gas sales taxes and vehicle registration fees.

"The revenue is declining, unless something changes in Lansing, and I'm not real optimistic," he said.

The commission's current budget anticipates a 5 percent decline in money from the Michigan Transportation Fund.

Townsend said requests for privately funded road work are less likely in areas that have local road millages, including the cities of Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, and three townships in the county.

"If you have a millage, it's a tougher sell," he said.

To create a special assessment district, which collects money from property owners on a one-time or yearly basis, signatures from at least 51 percent of the owners of road frontage must be obtained, Townsend said.

Freelance reporter Dan Meisler can be reached at danmeisler@gmail.com.