WALHALLA — The reluctance of some Oconee County property owners to turn over 25-feet of right-of-way is keeping dozens of dirt and gravel roads from getting paved, Public Works Director Mack Kelly said this week.

In many cases, while most property owners are willing to cede the right-of-way to the county so that roads can be paved, all it takes is just one holdout to block the work, Kelly said during an Oconee County Council Transportation Committee workshop earlier in the week.

The county last year identified 50 dirt and gravel roads in rural areas where the traffic count was 150 or more trips a day. Kelly said those roads needed the most work and in the long run it cost the county more to maintain such roads than if they were paved.

Of those 50 roads, the county paved three in which all of the property owners agreed to give up the right-of-way, which is 25 feet from the center line of the road to a landowner’s property.

Committee Chairman Joel Thrift said Thursday that council would not be inclined to exercise eminent domain to buy the right-of-way from reluctant property owners.

Once on that path, it would set an expensive precedent, Thrift said.

“It’ll irritate some and please others,” Thrift added.

Kelly said people have varying reasons for not giving up the right-of-way, including the idea that a dirt road tends to slow down traffic.

According to Kelly, the roads varied in distance from a mile to 800 feet and even less.

The previous council last year earmarked about $2.3 million to fund the road-paving program, but the present council left all of the money, except $500,000, unencumbered in the 2009-10 budget.