News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Baxter planning commission approved changing the way the city paves subdivision roads.
Baxter Building Inspector and Codes Officer Bob Lane said the slightly more expensive way to pave will benefit tax payers in the long run. Lane said these roads can last up to 25 years, and helps Baxter stay up to date for new development standards.
“We was a little bit light in Baxter and we just got behind times, we’ve not had a lot of development so it’s not been a big problem,” Lane said. “As this development continues to thrive like it is we’ve got to kindly tweak our codes and stay current.”
Lane said the Celeste Drive development was paved with these new standards in the last 30 days. Lane said new development costs for paving will go to contractors and not tax payers.
“It’s a long term fix, it will benefit the tax payers and save the city a lot of money,” Lane said. “We won’t be out here paving streets every 10 or 12 years, we’ll get 20 or 25 years out of these streets now, depending on the traffic and where it’s at.”
Previously, the paving ordinance called for 2 inches of finished pavement. There will now be two inches of binder, and then 1.5 inches of finished pavement on top of the binder.
“You have created a real good plane to lay that finish on and the subsurface is just so much better,” Lane said. “Your finished pavement just lasts a lot longer.”
Lane said binder is a type of asphalt with larger gravel. Lane said this process also creates less flexibility in the pavement, which breaks easily if bent.
