STATEN ISLAND — Local officials want to protect newly paved streets from being ripped up and fixed with "shoddy" repairs.
Councilman Steven Matteo and Borough President James Oddo plan to introduce a package of bills that will force the city to notify local officials when they rip up "protected" streets — ones that have been resurfaced within five years.
The bills will also create new standards for repairing them.
"We are investing an unprecedented amount of money into repairing and restoring our streets, on target to resurface nearly 4,000 lane miles by the summer of 2018," Matteo said in a statement.
"But this tremendous progress is undermined when utilities and contractors are able to tear up newly paved streets without good reason, then make substandard repairs to those streets."
Currently digging can't be done on the "protected" streets except for emergency work by utility companies and contractors, but the city regularly grants permits for it, according to the New York Times.
The first bill, which was introduced at a full council meeting on Tuesday, would require the city to notify the local council member, Borough President and Community Board before a permit is granted. Oddo and Matteo said it will give locals a chance to question the work before it starts.
"This legislation is designed to spark the conversation and bring all the players to the table so that we can work collectively to find the correct standard that will yield a process that does not guarantee us inferior roads in perpetuity by continuing to allow them to die the death of a thousand street cuts," Oddo said in a statement.
If the street gets cut up, the second bill — which they plan to introduce next week — creates a standard for repairs, the lawmakers said.
Under the bill, the repairs must be restored to the curb line and parallel to the curb for 20 feet on each side. The third bill will take discretion away from city agencies to waive the new requirement.
Both lawmakers have previously fought the city to repair the borough's crumbling streets.
Last year, after Oddo started the "Pave Baby Pave" campaign, Mayor Bill de Blasio allocated $242 million for road repairs across the city.
