Lakeway residents and guests in two local subdivisions were put on notice at Tuesday's City Council meeting that the Lakeway Police Department will be enforcing the city’s traffic laws on their private roads.

Council members unanimously approved an ordinance extending Lakeway’s traffic laws to the Pinnacle at North Lakeway and the Overlook at North Lakeway subdivisions located off RR 620 at the north end of the city and authorizing its police officers to enforce traffic provisions.

“We currently have a police presence in these subdivisions but the police cannot issue traffic citations,” City Manager Steve Jones said.

The streets within these neighborhoods are private roads and, in order to extend its laws and subsequent enforcement into private developments, the homeowners must request the enforcement and the city must approve an ordinance authorizing the enforcement, Jones said citing the Texas Transportation Code.

Two neighborhoods—Flintrock Falls and the Ridge at Alta Vista—are examples of private development roads on which city police officers are now permitted to write traffic citations as a result of this code provision, he said.

Steve McCarthy, director of the Pinnacle At North Lakeway Condominium Association, told council members he has observed people parking in fire zones and on one-way streets in the neighborhood as well traveling the wrong way down its one-way streets.

“Many of us had thought for a long time you already were [enforcing traffic laws],” he told Mayor Joe Bain. “So that started the ball rolling.”