Voters to Decide Future of Ossipee Lake’s Deer Cove Road

The following is from the Conway Daily Sun.

Ossipee—October 6, 2026—A dispute over a turnaround for snowplows and the cost of repairing Deer Cove Road has prompted Ossipee selectmen to schedule a special town meeting Oct. 14 at 5 p.m. at Town Hall to decide whether the town should stop maintaining a portion of the road.

Deer Cove Road intersects with Route 16 across from Aubuchon Hardware and then meets up with South Shore Road and curves northeast along the shore of Ossipee Lake’s Deer Cove.

At the special town meeting, voters will be asked whether to discontinue the section of Deer Cove Road from South Shore Road north to its dead end, converting it from a Class V maintained road to a Class VI road subject to gates and bars.

The road would remain public, but the town would no longer be obligated to maintain it.

At annual town meeting in March, a similar proposal was tabled to give officials and property owners time to work out a solution.

About 80 people attended a July 3 public meeting. According to selectmen’s minutes, property owners offered to remove structures that interfered with road work. No one at the meeting supported discontinuing the road.

In an Oct. 2 letter, Selectman James Rines said officials and residents reached agreements on virtually all the improvements needed along the road but could not resolve the issue of a permanent turnaround.

Rines said Donald Swansburg IV offered to allow the town to widen his driveway for use as a turnaround during the winter, provided the traveling public was excluded. However, Rines said the town believes a turnaround must be available year-round and open to public use.

Rines said Public Works Director TJ Eldridge estimates the improvements could come in at $250,000 to $300,000, including paving, drainage and other work.

Christopher Swansburg disputes the town’s claim that it already has legal rights to a turnaround on his cousin’s property. He said his cousin is willing to provide a permanent winter-use easement but opposes broader year-round use.

Property owner Frank Licata argues that residents should not be required to pay to maintain a road that remains open to the public.

Licata said the road has not been paved since 1997 and also has drainage, runoff, erosion and salt issues that he believes should be addressed before maintenance responsibility is shifted to property owners. He is asking state Rep. Bobbi Boudman to bring those environmental concerns to the attention of the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services.

Licata also suggested an alternative to Class VI status: having the town relinquish its public easement so the affected section could become a private road maintained by property owners.

“If we have to do the maintenance and plowing, then we should also have ownership,” Licata previously told the Sun.

Licata said the intersection of Deer Cove Road and South Shore Road could potentially serve as a public turnaround if the road beyond that point became private.

Selectmen unanimously voted Sept. 21 to send the Class VI proposal to voters, although Rines and Selectman Dallas Emery indicated that supporting a special town meeting did not necessarily mean they favored converting the road.