WAYNE — Two dozen roads in a lakefront neighborhood have been paved and will not have to be resurfaced for several years after officials said they spent months leaning on PSE&G to pay for most of the project.
It is rare for so many streets in the same vicinity to get such treatment at one time, but officials said they insisted that the utility company repair the roads around Lions Head Lake because its crews left them in terrible shape when they replaced gas mains there.
Mayor Christopher Vergano said he and the township administration sat down multiple times with PSE&G executives to try to end the dispute, which was at an impasse for weeks.
At one point, Vergano said, the township withheld permits that the utility company tried to obtain for household installations of air conditioners and hot water heaters.
“They told me that was against the law, and my answer was, ‘Sue us!’” he said, recalling his conversation with the executives.
The lake community looked like a “third-world country,” Vergano said at one point over the summer, because the patchy streets were ridden with bumps. Affected roads were Tamarack Road, which branches off of Colfax Road in the 6th Ward neighborhood, and its numerous byroads, including Allwood Terrace, Linden Road and Redwood Avenue.
The issue also impacted two roads in another part of the township, Vergano said. Entire lengths of David Scott Drive and Douglas Way — both in the 5th Ward — were milled and paved by a contractor hired by PSE&G.
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The full cost of the paving was $2.2 million, but the utility company covered two-thirds of that expense, Vergano said, leaving officials to come up with $733,000. “It sounds high,” he said at a public meeting of the Township Council on July 17, “but the roads won’t have to be paved again, hopefully, for another 15 years because we’re doing it right.”
Public Service Electric & Gas Co. is the largest and oldest publicly owned utility in the state. It is a principal subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group , a $50.7 billion company headquartered in Newark.
Lauren Ugorji, a spokesperson for PSE&G, said the utility company works closely with municipalities to ensure “proper planning” and “smooth implementation” when upgrading its infrastructure. She did not comment directly on the Wayne project, but with all gas system projects, she said, “we return after the appropriate settlement period has passed to restore the roads with permanent paving.”
Vergano acknowledged that the utility company offered to repair the streets around Lions Head Lake, but that he was not satisfied with its initial proposal.
Meanwhile, PSE&G announced Thursday that it would lower gas bills for residential customers by 5%. The utility company said in a statement that over the past decade, it replaced more than 2,245 miles of its aging pipes through a multistage modernization program .
Ongoing road construction at the lake community represents a portion of the local streets that were recently paved.
In June, the council awarded a $2 million deal to a Fairfield-based contractor to pave another 24 roads, including Chopin Drive, Hunter Place and Sloping Hill Terrace near Packanack Lake. That work was completed this month.
A separate paving job — a $1.1 million project that was partially funded by a state grant — is due to begin in less than two weeks on Willowbrook Boulevard, which loops around the mall.
Philip DeVencentis is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: devencentis@northjersey.com
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Wayne got the largest utility in NJ to pave a whole neighborhood. Here's how
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