Construction on Heights Road will wait until next year, decided the Village Council at their last meeting on Aug. 13.
The road, which was damaged after a water main broke last winter and is need of permanent repair, has been a topic at the last two council meetings.
Two meetings ago, the council received the results of bids collected by Hubble, Roth & Clark (HRC), the village engineers.
The bids came in with a price for repair of more than $5,000 than originally estimated, due to the time of the construction season, new Road Commission standards and fuel prices.
Members of the council elected not to accept the bid, saying that while they see the importance of repairing the road, they did not feel comfortable with the elevated price and directed the village manager to speak with the Road Commission for a bid on how much it would cost for the Commission to complete the Heights Road repair.
According to Village Manager JoAnn Van Tassel, after speaking with Neal Farner, of the Road Commission for Oakland County, it was suggested that the village wait until next spring and for the repair to take place as part of a large milling and repaving project the Road Commission is conducting.
‘Any place that they’ve got a bad section rather than doing a complete overlay, they are trying to make their money go further by milling just certain sections where the need is the greatest,? Van Tassel said, adding that the cost to complete the Heights repair would still be the responsibility of the village.
She added, though, that since the repair will be part of a larger project, it would probably be less expensive.
At the last meeting, the council elected to wait until the spring before making the repair. It will be decided at that time whether to be a part of the Road Commission’s project, or if that is not in the best interest of the village, to collect more bids.
Meanwhile, the village’s Department of Public Works (DPW) will keep an eye of the road, adding coal patch when needed as a temporary fix.