AUBURN – Dennis Lawler doesn’t imagine he’ll have much room left for a front yard once city crews widen the road.

Based on the survey markers and paint put down last week, at least part of his yard and driveway at 105 Pride Road will become part of Pride Road beginning this week. That’s when contractors are scheduled to begin a full reconstruction of the road – including new drainage and a sidewalk across the street from his house.

“I don’t call it the Pride Road anymore,” Lawler said. “There’s nothing to be proud of, not anymore.”

Pride Road, which is a half-mile long and has about 35 houses, connects Poland Road to Minot Avenue.

City contractors expect to begin a full reconstruction of the street next week, according to Jim DePalma, the city’s technical engineer. They’ll scrape off the existing pavement and base gravel, put in new drainage, widen the road by 8 feet, repave it and put a 6-foot sidewalk on the northeastern side.

Most of the work should be finished by November, with the final paving and landscaping scheduled for next spring. The budget for the project is $289,890.

“The reason we’re doing this at all is because of the condition of the road,” DePalma said. “We’ve had a number of complaints about it, and we’ve been planning to get to it.”

The new road will be about 28 feet wide, up from the current 20-foot average, he said. That’s still 4 feet narrower than the city likes its streets.

A problem’

The project was originally drawn up and its budget allocated by the City Council two years ago. DePalma said the gap between getting approval and doing the work is longer than usual, but not by much.

“Normally, we try and do the work about a year after we get the funding,” he said. “But this was a difficult road to do, and it was difficult getting in to do the surveying.”

Work was scheduled to begin last week. DePalma said he normally sends notices to neighbors two weeks before the work begins to let them know what to expect.

“But I didn’t do that here, and that caused a problem,” he said.

It sure did, Lawler said. He found out about the project when surveyors showed up on his lawn, putting down property markers and paint.

“All I know is that they tell me I’m losing 6 feet off of my front yard, and there’s not a thing I can do about that,” Lawler said.

He also disagrees with widening the road.

“Sure, it needs tar,” he said. “It needs some maintenance, but I don’t see the point in putting in a sidewalk, making it that much bigger. It’s basically a rural road, and they want to turn it into a boulevard.”

Lawlor complained to City Manager Pat Finnigan, City Councilor Marcel Bilodeau, Public Works Director Bob Belz, DePalma and City Engineer Steve Ranney.

“There was absolutely no reason they couldn’t give the neighbors more notice than they did,” Lawlor said. “There’s no reason to just spring this on us.”

As a result of Lawlor’s complaints, work was delayed. But the project will go ahead as planned, beginning this week, DePalma said. He is distributing letters to property owners describing what’s being planned.

“There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” DePalma said. “We wanted to demobilize the work, get some notice out to the residents and take some time to address their concerns.”