HOLMDEL — The largest capital improvement project in the history of the township is set to begin following the Township Committee’s unanimous approval of the program.
The road resurfacing project, which was approved at the May 19 committee meeting, consists of a $2,594,000 investment in 19 roads throughout Holmdel.
The total funding comes primarily from the municipality, but it also includes a $350,000 contribution from Bell Works and $174,000 in a state grant.
“I’d like to be authorized to do the engineering for that project and start it now so we have the opportunity to receive bids in August and award them immediately thereafter,” Township Engineer Edward Broberg said at the meeting.
“It’s actually the biggest project in Holmdel’s history, so we’re going to start this year and then we’ll be finished in early 2016, depending on weather conditions.”
The program includes significant investments of more than $300,000 in Cambridge Road and Crawfords Corner Road as well as Middletown Road.
However, dozens of residents of Wildhedge Lane and Sweetbriar Lane attended the meeting to express their concern with the state of their roads, citing safety issues and what they said is shoddy work that had been done by contractors hired by the township.
The “east loop” of Sweetbriar Lane will be resurfaced in this phase of the work, accounting for $225,000 of the larger project. However, Wildhedge Lane is only slated for $40,000 worth of drainage work.
“First of all, we do want to offer our thanks to [Mayor] Eric Hinds for coming to our neighborhood to check the roads and see that the conditions of these roads have reached the point of deterioration that they have,” said Mike Sokol, a resident of Wildhedge Lane.
“These roads are of one of the oldest neighborhoods in town. Age-wise, they go back 40 or even 50 years, and any engineering study will tell you that’s about twice the length of any given road.”
Sokol introduced several photos of the roads, which depicted tar patches and cracks on the pavement, to illustrate his point.
“Even if there has been some action done today, this is a project that really needs to be seen through to its completion,” Sokol said.
Hinds emphasized that the condition of the streets is a high priority for the township.
“It’s clear. No one is contesting one bit that it needs work,” Hinds said. “Clearly, decisions have to be made, because what I really need is roughly $15 [million] or $16 million today to take care of the roads.
“When we look road by road and try to prioritize, I am not disputing at all that your road needs love and needs a lot of it, because it’s been neglected for a long, long time. However, we squeezed as hard as we could and … your neighborhood is [going to cost] $500,000.”
Hinds added that the lion’s share of the work on Wildhedge Lane and Sweetbriar Lane would come in the second phase of the project.
“We felt that at least getting some infrastructure pieces in place to do that was a necessity,” Hinds said. “When we looked at what we could get, spreading it out throughout the town … it didn’t make sense to do it right now, this year.”
Asked by Sokol if the target goal was to start paving in 2016, Hinds responded affirmatively.