Pine Haven Mayor Karla Brandenburg took a few minutes recently to update town residents on the progress of the C Bar Subdivision development south of Vista Grande Drive on both sides of Pine Haven Road.
The work is coming along as planned with the roadways being cut in at this juncture and HDR Engineering's Heath Turbiville inspecting the situation as the crews proceed.
"We met with [the] Swagger construction foreman," Brandenburg said, "about compaction of the roads and ditches, which Heath will inspect again as things progress."
The mayor spoke to the issues of this effort: "Rain has been an issue as it gets pretty muddy throughout the subdivision for the heavy equipment, but I think they are keeping up on the work that needs to be done."
Completion of the road construction is planned for November, according to Brandenburg, "but of course weather will be the biggest factor right now".
"C Bar Subdivision owners have been great to work with as we maneuver through this big project," the mayor commented. "They are trying to be good neighbors."
She spoke to the efforts the town is taking to alleviate problems, saying, "I know the truck traffic has been an issue, but we are working with Keyhole Ranch to get another route to the dirt pile and the wood stock pile."
Brandenburg concluded, "This has been the first new subdivision in quite some time, the ordinance committee worked hard to get all the subdivision rules complete before they started this project and C Bar owners are following all the new ordinances for subdivisions."
When the Swagger crew was initially cutting the roadway and drainage through the C Bar property, they inadvertently struck the town's water main and as efforts were taken to fix the damage, a cascading effect began to occur.
At Tuesday morning's workshop, Mayor Karla Brandeburg explained the situation to her council, saying, "They dug it up and because the fittings were old...when they put a coupling in there and turned the water back on, it blew [one of the elbows in the line], fixed this [one]...and blew this [other]line...We were afraid that if we turned it back on again, it would blow [a] valve, which would really have caused us problems."
With the water shut off to the one home on the affected portion of line, this domino effect necessitated installing a valve, circumventing the damaged area so services could be restored to this residence.
This valve will remain in place, ensuring the line will serve the subdivision alone in the future.
A request came from the developers for the town to pay part of the cost of repairs for this accident. However, after discussing the situation with her associates, Brandenburg advised Turbiville to decline that suggestion.