Major Paving Project To Start Next Week

The town is poised to start a major paving project next week, encompassing many of the roads along the South Avenue-Main Street corridor.

Public Works Director told members of the Board of Selectmen during their most recent meeting that he’s hoping the approximately $1.6 million paving project starts Oct. 1 so that it’s wrapped up well ahead of Thanksgiving.

The town is to be reimbursed by utility companies for paving that will include Farm Road, South Avenue, Brooks Road, Crystal Street, Elm Place, Grace Street, Hawthorne Road, Kelly Green, Leslie Lane, Meadow Lane, Orchard Lane, Park Place, Selleck Place, Whitney Avenue, Woodland Road, Autumn Lane, Douglas Road, Fairty Drive, Orchard Drive, Southwood Drive, Tommy’s Lane, Green Avenue, Maple Street, Oak Street, Locust Avenue and Grove Street.

The town is hiring Norwalk-based FGB Construction to do the work, and will be reimbursed by Eversource and Aquarion, Mann said.

“There’s certain aspects in here that we do pay for,” Mann said during the Board’s Sept. 19 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “We pay for the police protection and we pay for the mobilization, small items like that. But they pay for the milling and the paving, the large items.”

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams voted 3-0 in favor of the $1,639,522 contract. 

The approval comes as the town seeks to repave roads that were opened up in order for Aquarion to install a 36-inch water line from the Wilton line to the area of Farm and South, among other projects. 

Asked about the status of Harrison Avenue, Mann said that Aquarion “had a leak in the 36-inch water line.”

“When they pressurized it, they had a leak, and it’s taken them about a month,” Mann said. “They had to bring in a special company to come in and find it. Last week they found it, and they’ve been working this week on sealing that, what they hope is just this one leak. It’s very small, it’s in a weld. But obviously they’ve got to meet tests.”

Mann added that “hopefully there’s not another leak further up the hill, because this one’s located very close to Main Street.”

“At that point in time, they’ll fill it, chlorinate it, and then we can come in and we can pave it,” he said. “So we’re waiting.”

The town also has to wait for the road to “settle,” Moynihan said.

Mann said the town might “put a thin shim course over the top” of Harrison and “let it sit for the winter,” adding that Little Brook Road may be in the same category “because there’s been so much work on the roads.”

“And we’re working right now on who would pay for that—whether it would be the town or whether it would be Aquarion,” Mann said. “My opinion is that Aquarion should help us go through this because they dug up the road so poorly, so much, that they should take over that idea. Because the thought is if we come in and we and we repave it and she settles over the winter, nobody wins at that point in time. We have to come back out and do it again. We’re in discussions right now as to how to proceed on that.”