What the rest of the section still says

The repeal changes one input to a calculation. It leaves the surrounding machinery intact, and most Rhode Island owners on a shared road have never read it.

Subsection (a) puts the duty on the owners who benefit from an access easement, not the owner whose land it crosses, “[i]n the absence of an enforceable, written agreement to the contrary” — and says the duty “shall include, but not be limited to, the removal of snow from the easement or right-of-way.”

Subsection (c) overrides proportional sharing where the damage has an author: an owner of a benefited or burdened property “who directly or indirectly damages any portion of the easement or right-of way shall be solely responsible for repairing or restoring the portion damaged by that owner.”

Subsection (d) supplies the remedy — specific performance or contribution in the Superior Court, brought by other benefited or burdened owners “either jointly or severally”, after a written demand.

And subsection (e) is why this whole section is a default rather than a rule: “In the event of any conflict between the provisions of this section and an agreement described in subsection (a) or (b) of this section, the terms of the agreement shall control.”

Which Rhode Island communities this actually moves

Only those with no enforceable written agreement. A condominium whose declaration allocates common expenses has one. A planned community whose declaration makes the roads common area maintained through assessments has one. Our Rhode Island assessment limits page covers how that allocation works where a declaration governs.

The communities left inside § 34-9.1-2 are the ones Rhode Island has in quantity:

• subdivisions where the town never accepted the road and the plat granted access easements without a maintenance covenant;
• developments whose declaration addresses architecture but is silent on the roadway;
• clusters of houses on a shared gravel drive or a paper street;
• communities where an association exists but the travelled way sits outside the declared common elements.

Rhode Island has no general planned-community statute, so what fills that gap is the declaration plus whatever the General Laws supply — and for roads, this section is most of what they supply. Our Rhode Island governing statute page sets out that structural gap.

What changes in an actual argument

“Benefit received” has never been defined in the section. From 2018 to June 2026 one candidate measure was explicitly forbidden; now nothing is. In a contribution action under subsection (d), a Superior Court may again weigh market value or assessed valuation alongside the physical measures — distance travelled over the easement, frontage, number of dwelling units, the weight and volume of traffic each parcel generates.

Note carefully what the repeal does not do. It does not require value to be considered, and it does not say value is the measure. It removes a prohibition, returning the question to the open standard the legislature wrote in the first place. An owner arguing that the larger house should pay more is now making an argument the statute permits rather than one it forecloses. So is the owner arguing the opposite.

The practical effect falls hardest on the party who was relying on the 2018 clause. In a community where the expensive waterfront house at the end of a long private drive had been paying a per-parcel share, the neighbours' argument for a value-weighted share is live again as of June 24, 2026.

What to do about it

Find out whether you have an enforceable written agreement, and be honest about the answer. Subsection (e) defers only to an agreement that is “enforceable”. A long-standing practice, an email chain, or an unrecorded memo among neighbours may not clear that bar. If it does not, the statutory default applies, and the default just changed.

If you do not have one, this is the moment to write one. The section can be displaced entirely by agreement, and an agreement can adopt whatever measure the owners choose — equal shares, frontage, units, or value. Fixing the formula by agreement is cheaper than litigating “benefit received” twice.

Do not split a damage bill proportionally. Subsection (c) assigns a damaged section to whoever damaged it. A road chewed up by one owner's construction traffic or fuel deliveries is that owner's cost, and the proportional rule in (b) never reaches it.

Settle who ploughs before December. Snow removal is named in the statute and falls on the benefited owners. It is the most frequently triggered duty in the section and the one most often assumed to be somebody else's.

What to watch next

The act passed as a repeal with a one-line official synopsis, so the legislative reasoning is thin on the record. What would settle the practical question is a published Superior Court decision fixing proportions under the amended subsection (b) and saying whether value is now a permissible factor, a dominant one, or merely admissible. Until then, the honest position is that the bar is gone and the measure is open.