Saying the town has received multiple complaints about the driveways that flank the Park Street parking lot, officials last week approved up to about $72,000 to repave them and fix a drainage problem that’s affecting an abutting commercial property.
The Board of Selectmen voted 3-0 at its regular meeting to approve a contract with a Norwalk company whose work will include redirecting drainage from the southern driveway that now affects a staircase behind the building at 125 Elm St.
“We are headed into another winter season and we would like to get this work done and make the area passable,” Public Works Director Tiger Mann told the selectmen at their Nov. 6 meeting, held in Town Hall.
“There is a pedestrian walkway, side staircase that is not owned by the town, that is maintained by a private property owner. He has had to go in and redo that staircase because of the drainage flowing off of our driveway onto his property. So we are trying to work in conduction with him to make sure that that pedestrian access way is maintained and is open for the future. So we think it’s a good partnership between the two. We asked him if he wanted monies to help with the staircase, he said no can you just take care of your driveway and take care of the drainage and we said certainly.”
First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Nick Williams voted 3-0 in favor of a contract not to exceed $72,577 with FGB Construction Company. The work has already started.
Mann noted that the town asked pedestrians to use a different staircase (the only alongside the Playhouse) to get down to Elm Street from Park Street lot while the work is underway, “but some still want to consider walking down the driveway.”
“I can’t tell them where to walk but I can make the area where they want to walk safer,” he said.
The work on the southern driveway will include substantial drainage work as well as addressing the way the access road now “cants” toward Elm Street, according to Mann.
The work on the southern side will come to about $50,737 and $21,840 on the northern side, Mann said.
Williams asked whether the funds were in the current fiscal year’s budget.
Mann said that while $50,00 had been slated for paving on one side or the other, no funds has been included for the drainage work.