Pine Haven plans more road improvements

Pine Haven is planning now to continue chip sealing the municipal roadways.

The newly formed infrastructure committee has hit the ground running with an investigation of the streets, graveled and paved, throughout town and advised Mayor Karla Brandenburg and council to consider two projects including improving drainage where needed, paving where appropriate and chip sealing.

The first to be completed in the 2023/24 fiscal year is Meadows Drive; the mayor explained to her fellow council members at the work shop last week, "Sean [Glasser, Public Works Director] will take that manhole down to a level that will make that a smoother transition and it will be finished with chip seal."

The next roadway to be improved is Sage Street, which had been paved with leftover asphalt during a former project, thus the pave is weak and in need of patching and chip sealing. HDR Engineering's Heath Turbiville mentioned that Sage was also one of the streets that would benefit from improved drainage, because, "The upper end is pooling water."

The west end of Lake Court was another badly damaged area, needing immediate attention, according to the infrastructure committee; and finally, Aspen Drive has drainage issues that would be included in its upgrade in this year's project.

These four streets are currently in the town's budget, Brandenberg noted, saying, "We have $250,000-$350,000 to spend for the chip seal. Everybody would have to agree, if we finish Meadows Drive...patch and chip seal Sage, fix the west side of Lake Court and then, we'd finish Aspen."

The group suggested the second project to be planned for the 2024/25 fiscal year include chip sealing Pine Haven Road and Waters Drive to the park "to save our roads that are already paved" as well as Boe Drive, in front of the houses, according to the mayor.

Brandenburg discussed the gravel roads previously on this year's agenda; however, after studying the situation further on foot, "They said that they just think that there is a lot more work that needs to be done down there. A lot of the roads down there don't have enough traffic and they're not wide enough and there is probably a lot of other stuff that needs to be done before we chip seal them if we ever chip seal them because there just aren't that many houses in the area."

To address wear problems in those areas, "The committee suggested that on Barb, Maple, Sharon and Elm [Streets], Sean gravel them and we try to start doing things down there – maybe just put some more gravel on there and fix them up a little bit...[and] Sean can deal with the drainage issues and repair damage on Vista Grande."

The mayor asked Turbiville to provide estimated project costs at the next meeting of the council.