CAPE MAY — After receiving a residential request for a street opening, City Council is considering an enhanced asphalt repair process for streets with an opening moratorium.
“I have a resident on Washington Street that is looking to convert from oil to gas and is requesting the city look at doing a street opening,” City Manager Paul Dietrich said Feb. 17. “However, as you can recall, the city has a requirement for a moratorium on street opening for five years.”
Washington Street was paved a year and a half ago, which Dietrich noted falls under the moratorium requirement. To waive that requirement, City Council must approve it on the recommendation of the Public Works director and Dietrich.
Dietrich said he had a recommendation for the council for enhanced asphalt repair technology.
In a typical repaving and repair, the asphalt is cut, then hot asphalt is put back, possibly with a seal coat around the edges, which Dietrich said results in what looks like a patch forever.
“The enhanced asphalt repair puts the patch in and sits for six months before coming back to heat up the new and old asphalt, rake it and blend it all in and re-roll it,” he said. “Essentially, when you come back, you almost can’t tell that they’ve had the repair, which allows you to do repairs in streets that are less than five years old.”
Deputy Mayor Maureen McDade asked who would bear the cost. Dietrich said the enhanced repair would most likely be passed to the homeowner as a condition of the permit.
McDade said the scenario could be used as a test case and that exploring rules and regulations might be done in the future, rather than handling these requests as individual considerations.
“If we did this as a test case that meets your satisfaction of the quality, I would recommend that we make this part of the ordinance procedure, so you have that exception on the moratorium,” Dietrich said. “If you don’t want to wait five years and you want to do this enhanced method, then this is what you have to do.”
McDade said she would like photo documentation of the current, interim and final conditions to review the process.
Councilwoman Lorraine Baldwin asked for more information on the process for the following meeting.
On March 3, Dietrich said he had videos for council to review to get a feel for the patching process and what is involved.
“The request ultimately comes from the homeowner, and they would pay the additional fee for this expedited process,” he said. “Ultimately, the work will be contracted, scheduled and coordinated through South Jersey Gas.”
Dietrich added that the process would be overseen by him and Public Works.
“I think it’s a good alternative when you have a property owner that is looking to make a change,” he said. “Their heater is going and they wanted to change heating sources from oil to natural gas, and this is a typical case where they weren’t able to get it done or didn’t know they needed to do this [almost] two years ago when we paved the road.”
Using this street opening and repair as a test case and potentially amending the city’s ordinance could be the path to go forward, Dietrich said.
Councilman Shane Meier asked about the repair timeline. Dietrich said that a resolution to authorize the request could be on the agenda for the March 17 meeting.
“The initial work would probably happen within two to three weeks, then you let it sit 45 to 60 days and then do the ultimate repair patch,” Dietrich said. “It won’t happen until later in the summertime, where at this point, you’d probably tell them to wait until September or October, when there’s a little less traffic.”
Mayor Zack Mullock said he wanted to discuss three patches in town that he does not like, including one on Texas Avenue outside Wawa (a county road), one on Columbia Avenue and one on Jefferson Street between Washington and Lafayette streets.
“I’m just bringing up my most pet peeved potholes,” Mullock said. “Columbia has a patch that was the worst patch I’ve ever seen done and it’s bad enough that it’s opening up.”
Dietrich said he did not think final patches had been completed in those areas.
“A couple of these patches are not motivating to do more patches,” Mullock said.
Dietrich said he wanted to delve deeper into the road permit process and how it moves from the request to the clerk’s office to Public Works, how Public Works treats it, and the flip side of patches generated by city projects.
“I think we can do better at the tracking of them to make sure they’re done properly, but also that it’s followed up better and they do a final restoration in a better time frame,” Dietrich said. “The three you mentioned are still the temporary patches and they never had the final patches.”
Dietrich added that they have been in conversation with the county about the pothole on Texas Avenue.
“I think they’re trying to work with our contractor that’s doing the work on Illinois Avenue, so when he’s paving it he can come back and get them,” Dietrich said. “I think administratively, I can do a better job at tracking them and make sure we’re watching them better.”
Dietrich said council could make this repair technique a standard requirement for final restoration, rather than just a special condition.
City Solicitor Chris Gillin-Schwartz asked Dietrich how this repair technique would fit in with the way the code is written now, with hardship openings vs. trench restoration, or if this is a third option.
Dietrich said he saw two options: one with full-width repairs, and the second, to use the enhanced method for trench repairs.
“Then you almost get rid of the need for the emergency repair,” Dietrich said. “You get rid of the need of tracking the moratorium.”
By RACHEL SHUBIN/Special to the Star and Wave