Councilor pushes for paving on deteriorating Keyes Road

By Owen Boss

GARDNER — After receiving several phone calls from concerned residents in his ward, Councilor David Boudreau arranged for a sit down meeting between the Public Welfare Committee and the Planning Board Thursday aimed at reviewing the progress of an extensive gravel removal project at the Cedar Hills development site. The Planning Board approved the removal of 45,000 square yards of gravel from the site in July in order to protect the surrounding wetlands and to maintain three protective detention ponds surrounding the property. According to Mr. Boudreau, flooding and deteriorating road conditions resulting from the project are among the top concerns of residents living on Keyes Road adjacent to the site. “This is in my ward and I have had numerous calls about it and I have a responsibility to the people I represent,” said Mr. Boudreau. “The road conditions out there are not what we wish it was, and last year I spoke wit the public works director and we had some problems out there with flooding and road conditions and they said they were going to do something to repair it like patchwork and I went out there and I didn’t see that.” In response, planning board member Robert Hubbard said that preliminary efforts to curb similar flooding this year had been recently made. “In the last week or so, if you look, you’ll see that the Department of Public Works has gone and painted some lines in the road for preparation of the installation of a catch basin and the plan is that it will relieve the flooding problem,” said Mr. Hubbard. Aside from the issue of flooding, Mr. Boudreau said the constant flow of trucks is significantly damaging the dirt road and asked that the planning board attempt to negotiate with developer Cedar Hills LLC to see if repairs can be arranged. “With all of those trucks going in and out of there, we knew that this road was going to be beat up a little bit,” said Mr. Boudreau. “You guys had some stipulations in here about what would have to be done after a certain amount of work had been done and there are things that have to be done to the road.” Mr. Hubbard said he realized the conditions of the road were causing a problem, but the company is not required in the conditions of the contract to pave the road during the project, something he would change if he could. “I don’t disagree with you that the road is in deplorable shape,” said Mr. Hubbard. “It definitely is and a lot of that is due to the implementation of sewer lines, which was done by the developer. The way that the planning board’s conditions were written says that the final coating of the road will wait until after the gravel is removed. If I had to do this again I would have a condition in there that requires an intermediate paving of the road because the final solution to the drainage problem and making the road smooth is to be done at the end of the project and we aren’t at the end of the project, and even if we didn’t have this housing crash, the end of the project wouldn’t be until 2011.” Although the contract did not require interim paving, Mr. Hubbard said he would not be against contacting the owner and presenting him with the idea. “We could approach the owner about doing an intermediate paving, but everyone has to understand that that is not a condition in the approval so there may have to be some negotiation that has to go on in order to get that done,” said Mr. Hubbard. “I haven’t discussed this with the planning board but I think it makes sense. A reasonable person would want to see that road smoothed out.” The planning board estimates that just less than 30,000 of the permitted 45,000 cubic yards of gravel have already been removed from the site and Mr. Boudreau went on to suggest that the company remove a predetermined additional amount of material in exchange for the improvement of the road. “I don’t know that they are making money on the material coming out in the sense that they are making more than they are putting in, but that is neither here nor there,” said Mr. Hubbard. “The point is that the material has value, and removing more material has value and the bank should be willing to do something in exchange for that.” oboss@thegardnernews.com

Appeared on Page 1 on 9/26/2008 (Vol. 206 No. 228)