Councilors Accept Bonin Drive, Approve Landfill Solar Panels

Haverhill City Hall. (WHAV News file photograph.)

Plans are in the works to repave Bonin Drive, off Broadway and Pilgrim Road, as Haverhill city councilors formally accept the access road to a long-completed subdivision as a public way.

Councilors gave unanimous support following discussion raised by Councilor Michael S. McGonagle on street conditions, including heaving pavement around catch basins. The road’s acceptance was overlooked by the city until a recent road repair request, according to City Engineer John H. Pettis III. He said procedure changes already in place will ensure that situation won’t happen again.

“Every December a list of new paved streets would go to the Highway Department to start plowing them whether it had been accepted or not. After I came in and started working for the city we changed that procedure so now any roadway bond, before it can be zeroed out with the planning board, they have to file for street acceptance so there’s no more of things like this slipping through the cracks. It would have been great, obviously, as this road is 30 years old. It does have to be repaved soon, it will be on the city to do that. It’s nice to be able to catch these things early because the more miles of road we have accepted the more chapter 90 money we get from the state to repair our roads,” Pettis said.

Bonin Drive and the subdivision it serves were created in 1985.

City councilors also approved placing solar panels at the city’s former Groveland Road Landfill. Councilors voted 8-1 to allow the city to enter a net metering agreement with solar power operator SunEdison. Councilor William H. Ryan voted against the move out of concern he raised in discussion two weeks ago for “visual pollution” in the Riverside area.

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