Nassau sidewalk project frustrates Rockville Centre residents 

Kristin Willis-Toro was pleased when she learned that Nassau County was replacing the sidewalk and installing a new drainage system on her Rockville Centre street. North Long Beach Road had flooded several times in recent years.

"It needed to be done," Willis-Toro, a social worker, said on a recent evening in front of her home.

But when the sidewalk construction was completed in late September, there was a 6-inch gap between it and the height of her driveway. Her optimism morphed into frustration. 

"We're also taxpayers here, so we're paying for this," she said. "We want the job to be done right."

Willis-Toro’s home is among at least 15 along a stretch of North Long Beach Road requiring remedial work after the newly installed sidewalk did not match the elevation of their properties. The ongoing project to install drainage infrastructure and sidewalks and repave the thoroughfare runs between Demott Avenue and Woodland Drive.

"It’s upsetting," said Mike Fabiani, whose home of 40 years was also affected. "How do they let the sidewalks not measure up to the property?"

The county's contractor has begun regrading and repaving the bottom portion of driveways, as well as digging up and reseeding lawns, to make up for the flaw. But at least one household, concerned the free repairs would leave a mismatch between the bottom and upper portion of their driveway, has had to spend to redo the rest of their driveway. Jorge Toro, Willis-Toro's husband, said they paid $3,850 for the work.

A Nassau County spokesperson did not respond to Newsday’s written questions about the project’s costs and whether the elevation flaw was caused by a mistake of the design consultant, the contractor, or other factors. Someone who answered the phone at Pratt Brothers Inc., the Hauppauge-based contractor for the project, declined to comment.

The project will cover 1.2 miles of North Long Beach Road and includes "catch basins, pipes ... modifying the profile of the roadway, curb ramps and sidewalks ... pavement markings, traffic loops, and other incidental work," according to a public notice by the Village of Rockville Centre.

Julie Grilli, a spokesperson for the village, said that because Nassau County is the lead agency on the project, the village's role mainly has been limited to communicating road closures to the public.

Michael Shenoda, an associate professor of civil engineering at Farmingdale State College who is not involved in the project, said when there is an elevation mismatch of an inch or two in engineering plans, contractors can usually correct for it during construction.

"This much error is relatively rare," he said of the work done on North Long Beach Road.

Shenoda, who has worked as a design consultant, said engineering plans for roads like this often are based on surveys with measurements every 50 feet or so, which can lead to inaccuracies.

Willis-Toro said Pratt Brothers employees themselves were helpful and communicative, providing a temporary wooden ramp for her 83-year-old mother to navigate the driveway-sidewalk gap in her wheelchair.

But she said when she contacted the county's Department of Public Works to complain about the mistake, they put her in touch with a consultant, who told her the project would only pay to repave the bottom half of her driveway — not the whole thing.

Toro said this would have left their driveway with two different colors of asphalt — what he called a "Frankenstein driveway."

"It's not that we're trying to get a new driveway out of [the county]. It's the fact that [they’re] doing this work, this is [their] mistake ... and that affects property value," he said.

In the end, the couple paid Pratt Brothers to redo their entire driveway — an unexpected expense.

"As a social worker, I work with teenagers, kids, families. When something's wrong, I advocate for them. This is not right. ... That's why I called the county," Willis-Toro said.

Marc Herbst, executive director of the Long Island Contractors' Association, said he was not familiar with this particular project, but when these types of mistakes occur, counties and contractors can't meet all residents' demands.

"There's a cost matter. ... How do I pave [all of] one driveway and then go to the next neighbor and not do theirs?" he said.

However, he said contractors need to be careful when performing private and public work simultaneously, in order to ensure private jobs are not done using public time, supplies or material. Some contractors simply refuse to do private repairs alongside public projects to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, Herbst said.

Fabiani said he wishes the mistake never occurred in the first place, but in the end he was satisfied with the free repairs made this week to his property.