Residents who live along Celia Lane near downtown Warrenton were not pleased to learn that the city planned to close their main access to Highway U.A group of property owners attended the city’s May 16 board of aldermen meeting to express concern over a decision to vacate portions of Celia Lane and Pinckney Road near the intersection of Highway U and Main Street.The board had previously agreed to abandon the streets and allow them to be removed, in exchange for an easement to build a new sidewalk along Highway U.That would leave the residents of five households with only one way out at the intersection of Pinckney and Main Street.“I’m not very happy about what’s going on,” one resident told the board.“Pinckney Road in the winter is nothing but a sheet of ice. It’s going to be very hard for us to get up and down that road. There’s a lot of times … people turn on (Main Street) and you almost have a head-on collision with them.”Developer Ray Welge asked why nearby residents hadn’t been notified that the city was discussing closing the roads. He speculated that traffic on Main Street, which becomes Highway MM, is likely to increase as more businesses open at the mall in Warrenton, making it even more difficult to exit the neighborhood.“It seems to me we’re closing streets just to satisfy one party,” Welge said.The tentative agreement that proposed to close the street sections is between the city and Keeven Family Partnership, which owns a number of parcels along Highway U that are broken up by Celia Lane and Pinckney Road. The Keeven family wants to be able to develop those parcels as one large property, so it offered the sidewalk easement in exchange for the streets.The city wants to connect sidewalks downtown to an existing section of sidewalk near the county communications center. That would allow pedestrians to travel along Highway U without having to walk on the roadway around a blind turn, removing a safety concern. At the time, aldermen said the deal seemed like a win-win.Looking back, “it was an error on the part of the council not to notify the public that we were considering this,” said Ward 2 Alderman Gary Auch, whose ward includes the affected streets.He said he would like to delay any decision until the board has had a more extensive conversation with the public and other parties such as emergency responders.Any final decision to vacate streets or accept an easement would require the passage of an ordinance by the board of aldermen, as well as any necessary land surveying beforehand. Those elements of planning are likely to be put on hold.Road Closedrottenman - Fotolia