KINGSTON >> Mayor Shayne Gallo says he is confident that an ambitious plan to stabilize soil around the Washington Avenue sinkhole will start next spring and the road will reopen by year’s end.
Gallo made his comment this week as the administration continues to obtain easements from nearby property owners in order to, among other things, store construction equipment.
Corporation Counsel Andrew Zweben said Tuesday morning that of the 15 easements needed, only five have been secured. He expected that two more would be secured by the end of the day.
City Planner Suzanne Cahill, whose property is next to the sinkhole, said that she and her husband, Michael, will sign an easement once corrected maps delineating the specific locations of easements is given to them. Cahill said an original map was not correct.
“I would like very much for this all to be put to bed,” Cahill said. “We want the project completed and we believe this is what it is going to take in order for the project to be completed.
“We have been waiting for this for years,” Cahill added. “It is time to finish it and get it over with.”
Gallo said that the soil stabilization project, which includes construction of an underground archway, will get done, even if all easements are not obtained.
“I am confident that we will execute this plan accordingly,” Gallo said this week. “The street will reopen.”
When asked if he thought the city would use eminent domain procedures to get easements, Gallo responded: “it’s not a matter of commenting. The city isn’t there yet.”
Zweben said that he is confident that all necessary easements for the archway project will be obtained. If not, Zweben said, the city has options it would use including changing construction plans.
“Depending on whose we get and ones we don’t get, will (dictate) the options. We have done it already and we will do it again,” Zweben said, referring to a related piping project to be done at nearby Tannery Brook.
Gallo said that he “respected” a few property owner decisions to not grant easements near the site of a related piping project around the Tannery Brook.
But the city is dealing with those decisions by cutting back on that job to only include 75 feet of piping, Gallo said.
Gallo said flooding may continue in the area where the piping project has been cut back. The city, he said, will not be responsible for flooding there.
The underground archway is to be 50 feet high, 175 feet long and weigh 10,000 tons.
The archway was recommended by Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers of New York City.
In September, City Engineer Ralph Swenson said construction of the archway – a project originally expected to place in the summer and fall of 2014 – probably would not begin until next spring.
The project, and the piping work at the Tannery Brook, were pushed back because the city lacked permission from nearby property owners to keep construction equipment on their land.
The sinkhole opened on Washington Avenue, near Linderman Avenue, in the spring of 2011, and Washington has been closed to traffic from Linderman to The Boulevard (Route 32) ever since.
The sinkhole has been blamed on a leaky underground stormwater tunnel. The archway – 50 feet high, 175 feet long and weighing 10,000 tons – is to be built beneath the surface of Washington Avenue and above the 100-year-old tunnel, with the goal of stabilizing the soil at the site.