To: Representative Avila

Re: Repaving of Wood Valley Dr

Date: 14 November, 2007

Representative Avila,

I'm a resident at 4709 Wood Valley Dr., Raleigh, NC 27613 and I wanted to pass on to you the response I got from Steve Halsey at the DOT yesterday but some background first.

The main thoroughfare in the Wood Valley subdivision, Wood Valley Dr., has been needing repaving for some time as most of the 2 mile stretch of road is anywhere from 18 to 20 years old. Approximately 3 weeks ago road crews came in and patched the worst sections with macadam and this was a marked improvement even though the entire length was not done. A week and half ago crews came in ad scraped the shoulders down to allow for finished paving - the reason given was that they had to make sure there was adequate drainage when the new pavement was put down for the entire length of Wood Valley - they made a mess of a lot of lawns but if this is what we needed to get the street paved so be it.

Last week the crews showed up and started the work on what we all thought was a preliminary step of spreading tar and gravel before paving. The street has been a mess since then - incredible dust, tar and cinders in the air, on cars and lawns. But once again we thought that this was worth it to set things up for the actual paving.

This week we found out that was the actual and final paving of Wood Valley Drive - and this is totally unacceptable. This type of roadway works well in rural farm land but not in a residential neighborhood where the average home sells for $450,000-$550,000 and we pay our fair share of taxes to support the county and state.

Getting back to the response I got from the DOT - I was told that the decision was made to use tar and gravel because that was the solution that would fit into the remaining budget for 2007 - obviously no consideration was given to the community in general or the fit into surrounding communities. You should know that the tar and gravel after being down for less than a week is showing severe signs of "wash boarding" throughout. I also believe that this lousy paving job (done by the same group that brought us Route 40 (twice) has negatively affected the housing values in the entire Wood Valley community especially as compared to surrounding developments with actual paved roads.

I would very much like to know what you can do to have this remedied.