The paths nobody owned

Kensington’s neighbors count eleven little public paths between the houses, stairs and walkways that cut from one street to the next. For more than a century, nobody officially owned them.

They go back to the streetcar days. In 1911 and 1912, the developer of Kensington Park and Berkeley Highlands dedicated the streets and the paths to Contra Costa County. The paths were there so people could walk to the Key System streetcars on Arlington Avenue. The No. 7 line ended about a block past the Berkeley line, and it ran until 1948. After that, people kept walking the paths to the shops on Arlington and at Colusa Circle.

But the County never accepted the paths. In 1995 it wrote that it had never meant to own them. So neighbors kept them up themselves.

Owning nothing had its problems. In 2006 a drainage pipe under one path started failing and causing trouble next door. The County held off, since it didn’t own the land. With the neighbors’ permission it put in a temporary fix, and by 2012 a permanent drain was going in.

Then a group of neighbors, the Kensington Pathkeepers, pushed to give the paths a real home. In March 2025 the district board voted 5-0 to try. That June the County formally accepted three paths, Ardmore, Beloit and Coventry, and in July it deeded them to the district. On July 26 more than 50 neighbors gathered on the Ardmore steps to celebrate. New signs went up, and in January 2026 the board set aside money for path repairs.

A century on, the paths finally have someone looking after them. On a house, that job falls to the gutters and downspouts. Before the rains, make sure they’re clear and the water goes where it should. If ladders aren’t your thing, that part’s ours.