You may not even notice them if you’re not looking, but scattered all across Old Town in Laurel are short and long alleys that run behind many of the houses. Fixtures of a bygone era, some are indiscernible without a survey, others are regularly used by residents to access their back driveways, and others are slowly degrading with time.

As time has gone on, one of the challenges has been figuring out which ones belong to whom, since they go so far back to a time when records are scarce – Many are considered part of each resident’s private property, some are public and used by the City, and others are considered abandoned. When it comes to upkeep, then, the question has become who has ultimate jurisdiction for each alley?

Around 2020/ 2021, the City undertook a research project to figure out as best it could what all the alleyways were, how they were being used, and which belonged to whom. That effort got distilled down into Resolution 9-21 signed into law in October 2021 providing a table of alleys and a protocol for approaching their maintenance and possible improvement.

The gist is that the City pro-actively maintains the City-owned and/or officially used alleys, while residents ultimately retain responsibility for resident-owned alley ways. Some protocols are laid out for those resident-owned alleys where the City can opt to help shoulder some costs for improvements, but legal ownership of those still remains with the residents.

If you happen to be impacted, or are just curious to learn more, here’s a copy of Resolution 9-21, also available from the Office for the Clerk to the Council.