Gated landowners

Hyper

Recycles dryer sheets
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Nov 4, 2014
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Not in a subdivision. No HOA or anything of the sort. Remote 20 to 200 acre plots surrounded on all sides by very large ranches.
Tossing around the idea of putting in a very large, heavy gate for just us few landowners. Us a one rental couple a mile away are the only ones that live up here year round.
Anyone live in such a gated area or have knowledge on the subject?
 
How many people and what do they say?

I would think you would have to have 100% agreement on it... also, who pays?

OHHH, how do friends come and deliveries get made? What about emergency vehicles? All doable, but ya gotta think...
 
As long as it's a private road with easements and you get agreement with all the landowners who have a share in the easement, legally it shouldn't be an issue.

The issue you're going to face is on-going maintenance and how to get all the landowners to pay for it as time goes on; as properties get sold and owners come and go, it's going to be harder to get consensus on maintenance and getting everyone to chip in.

Another issue I see is liability insurance. What if the gate malfunctions and causes injury? Will each owner by covered by his own umbrella policy?

Personally I would not do this unless there's a compelling reason why you must have a gate. Since the properties are remote, security should not be an issue. And if you are running cattle on these properties, the properties by default have to be fenced/cross fenced anyway to prevent stock from wandering off.

I own a lot in a subdivision of 5 landowners and there's a private road with easement shared by all the landowners, but we never considered putting up a gate (I would have vetoed the idea anyway).
 
I have a gate on our driveway. 5 acre property. Driveway is just ours - we don't share with anyone. I just have a cable lock - no electronic entry. I only lock it when we go on trips.

In OP's case, I don't see a problem with it as long as everyone sharing the driveway agrees to it.
 
I have a gate on our driveway. 5 acre property. Driveway is just ours - we don't share with anyone. I just have a cable lock - no electronic entry. I only lock it when we go on trips.

In OP's case, I don't see a problem with it as long as everyone sharing the driveway agrees to it.
I agree with Ronstar. On my ranch I don't have a gate on my private road two track road. I leave things open for a few other ranchers/farmers to access through my place so they can get to their land easier. I have no problem with thief's yet so I don't want to making gates an issue. With my place people can come and enter from the river so if someone wants to really get on mine, they can from Yellowstone River that borders mine. Fences/gates draws a line in the dirt and is not always a good thing.

If there have been no issues or problems, I personally wouldn't gate it but that is me.

I have a few signs up cameras in use and that has been a positive thing in my observation.
 
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In my remote place Fed Ex has a one gate maximum for delivery. Our driver is an independent delivery, so he just drops it over our last gate. I have to remember to tip him better he has started bringing smart post packages up to the house instead of leaving at the Post Office.
 
At one point we had two gates to get my property. The first was just off a state highway on a private road that allowed access to 4 different tracks of property. We were the only ones that lived here permanently, the others were part timers. Long story but, one of the property owners had a bad habit of leaving the gate open no matter if he was here or not. I offered to buy and maintain an automatic gate opener but he didn't want to be bothered with having to remember to bring the gate opener (remote) with him so now we just leave that gate open. (There's always one)

Anyway, I have an electronic gate "just off the private road" to get on my property. We can see the private road from our house and it's almost rare to see anyone coming down the road so I guess the first gate didn't matter that much.
 
Wildfires, forest fires would be a serious concern. Majority of owners (10) would like a gate. There has been issues with trespassers but majority has been on the other land owners. Our place is fenced for stock and we do have a gate. DW and I are the road "sugar daddies"! We do all the maintenance and majority of cost. The road is two miles long. Barely passable when we bought. Turning into a very nice road as we continue working on it. I do it for DW. Cost and construction of the gate would be ours.
 
I installed a Knox switch at our current home gate and will do so at this gate.
It is a special barrel key switch that only your local FD has in their trucks. Every time they use it it gets logged at their end, and they get instant access for a medical or fire emergency.
Gate Key Switches and Padlocks - Knox Rapid Access System
I will also install a Knox box on the new house.
I have used Mighty Mule gate openers for a long time now. Easy to install and fairly durable.
Put in a keypad and visitors can get in. They also have a wireless setup for reasonable distances so you can intercom and open from the house.
In my case, I will have some dark fiber run down there and can open the gate, view a camera etc.
 
I worked in the pipeline industry. The landowners had heavy metal manual swing gates. There might be multiple entities that used the gate and it would be a chain with locks which each lock around the other locks shank. Each company and landowner had their own lock. Our company had thousands of locks which had the same serial number. If somebody needed emergency access then they would use bolt cutters. Pretty affective and easy.
 
I worked in the pipeline industry. The landowners had heavy metal manual swing gates. There might be multiple entities that used the gate and it would be a chain with locks which each lock around the other locks shank. Each company and landowner had their own lock. Our company had thousands of locks which had the same serial number. If somebody needed emergency access then they would use bolt cutters. Pretty affective and easy.
When I worked in the oil and gas industry, I probably opened a thousand gates with locks over the years. It's very common in Texas to have a gate with lock on a rural and private road. I also carried big bolt cutters in the truck!
 
DW and I are the road "sugar daddies"! We do all the maintenance and majority of cost. The road is two miles long. Barely passable when we bought. Turning into a very nice road as we continue working on it. I do it for DW. Cost and construction of the gate would be ours.
Have you considered a road maintenance agreement with the other owners? That's what we had with a previous lot I owned on a private road with about five other lot owners. Not nearly as big or long as yours so we just split the cost equally among the owners, the yearly cost were minimal. Would probably have to scale the cost in your situation, wouldn't be fair for a property owner near the entrance to pay the same as someone living 2 miles down at the end of the road. We had a gate and a USPS neighborhood mail box at the entrance.
 
Wouldn't be fair for a property owner near the entrance to pay the same as someone living 2 miles down at the end of the road. We had a gate and a USPS neighborhood mail box at the entrance.
Lol. We're at the end of the two mile road! If someone else was doing all the maintenance when we bought. Id never let them do it all by themselves and would help with labor and $. The other land owners are very aware of who is doing all the work and $. After 3 years now one should never have to ask. It'd just make me mad as the majority are fairly wealthy?? The great Lord blessed us to be able. Lol, if it weren't for my wife, id bought a monster truck and rip up n down the road n have a ball!
We can get alot of snow! Two winters ago we got 21'! Took me forever to get plowed out. I've since bought some serious equipment!
The rental couple a mile away were very bad about letting us do all the plowing. I also bought steel to build a drag that would put the snow back on the road. They must have heard I wasn't impressed and they did go buy a skid steer last winter.
Was a good idea as he has to work, we do not!
 
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Also working in the oil patch I had plenty of locked gates to go through daily. Whenever I could I'd cut out a link in the chain and add my lock. Many times someone would lock out someone else's lock if they didn't do it this way. I also carried a "master key" for when this happened. That person who locked out my key often found their lock on the ground.
 
Not in a subdivision. No HOA or anything of the sort. Remote 20 to 200 acre plots surrounded on all sides by very large ranches.
Tossing around the idea of putting in a very large, heavy gate for just us few landowners. Us a one rental couple a mile away are the only ones that live up here year round.
Anyone live in such a gated area or have knowledge on the subject?
 

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I’ve had to deal with gates at a couple locations.
1. Emergency access: you can install a Yelp sensing capability. Emergency vehicles hit the yelp function on the siren to open it. Check with the sheriff or police for their requirements. Will be part of permitting for the county.

2. Access programming. Assuming you aren’t going to have internet or cell modem on the gate, you will have to keep the software access database on a notebook computer and go to the gate to update.

3. If you have phone line or internet on the gate, you can program, allow access and open the gate remotely. Without that, anyone coming through will need an access code. For security, you will need to load a bunch of one time codes or risk the codes getting spread around with the loss of security.

4. Power. Are you going to run grid power or solar/battery? You should have backup power capability for emergency access if grid power is down.

5. Gate type. Rolling or swing. Each has a different hanging requirement. Exit sensor. Buried mag loop, optical, keypad each has pros and cons along with levels of security.

Get several quotes from good companies if possible. Have them option out the configurations that will work for your site.

See if the other land owners will agree to deed modification to incorporate an association for the purchase of roads, gates and insurance if needed. You won’t be there forever and this is a large investment. Maintenance can be significant.

Good luck.
 
Who would pay for the gate/maintenance? How is it opened/closed? Would that require electricity (and who pays the bill)? Would this require a code to open/close and does each homeowner get one code or share? And what about delivery trucks, etc that need access? If all agree but one, how is the cost split?
 
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