Cleveland Heights Residents Push Back On Proposal To Pave Over Brick Roads

Cleveland Heights officials are seeking ways to improve the city’s roads, but that could lead to paving over historic brick streets.

The proposal is facing pushback from residents, who will meet Wednesday night to discuss the issue.

The city floated the idea of paving over the brick before, but residents rejected it in favor of keeping the streets as they are. Now the city is seeking ways to fix parts of the roads that have fallen into disrepair.

The brick street where Anne Billington lives, Exeter Road, is bumpy and needs work, but she doesn’t want it paved over. And the bricks help cut down on speeding in the neighboorhood, she said.

“We prefer to keep it the way it is, but update it so it’s not so bad,” Billington said.

Billington has lived on Exeter Road for nearly 50 years. This debate comes up regularly, she said, but residents prefer to keep the historic brick.

“We’ve been paying the same taxes to the city all these years,” Billington says, “and they’ve done minimal things to our streets.”

The city invited residents to a meeting to discuss road conditions and possible reconstruction options, Public Works Director Collette Clinkscale told ideastream via email. Officials have met with individual homeowners to discuss what they’d like to see done with the street, Clinkscale also wrote.

“The City is using this opportunity to get feedback from all Exeter residents that are impacted, not just the ones that have reached out to the City, on possible reconstruction options to address the disrepair of the road,” Clinkscale said.

Officials haven’t made a decision on whether to pave over the bricks on Exeter Road.