Is Jeffers Road legally a private road?

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By Christy Hutchings - bio | email

PORT WENTWORTH, GA (WTOC) - The state is getting involved in a dispute over one Port Wentworth road, determining once and for all if it's a public or a private road.

The road is Jeffers Road off Highway 21 in Port Wentworth, also known as Coldbrook Road. See map below.

It's a part of a lawsuit. See, Lawsuit against Port Wentworth finally over

People claim Port Wentworth denied city services to certain African-American neighborhoods. WTOC first told you about this story Wednesday night on THE News at 11pm. The issue with their water and sewer has been resolved and they are getting those services, but the question still remains, who will have access to Jeffers Road?

There are several families who have land along this road, but can't get to it because signs say it is a private road and maintained by the man for whom the road is named, Lynn Jeffers.

The question folks are hoping the state can answer is, does Jeffers Road belong to Lynn Jeffers or is it a public road?

In order to figure that out, you'd have to figure out if the road is really called Jeffers Road or Coldbrook Road? According to the City of Port Wentworth in 1994 it was changed to Jeffers, but if you look at Chatham County tax records from this year its Coldbrook Road.

It's this inconsistency that has some landowners unable to access their properties. "It's a situation that should be cleared up and it never should have occurred," said Della Steele.

Steele is one of the landowners, who simply can't get to her property without driving down Jeffers Road. "I'm the landowner, I pay taxes. Twice a year I am paying taxes, but I can't get in a car and go check my property," said Steele.

Lynn Jeffers claims he built the road and over the years has sunk a lot of money into it. He says if the city or the county want the road, they can have it, but as long as he's footing the bill for it, it's private. "I've got more than $100,000 in what you see," said Jeffers. "When it belonged to the county the county said if you want to build back there you go ahead and build back there, but we're not building a road for one individual."

So Jeffers built the road and he says now others want to use it, but the road just can't handle all the traffic. "Multiple families can't use a single lane road," said Jeffers.

Della Steele says she knows Jeffers is only doing what he was told he could do, and the issue lies with whomever gave him permission to do it. "You don't give away property that other people have to use to access their property," said Steele.

The city is expected to file the necessary paperwork to the state by the end of this year.