Pavement Cut and Street Restoration Rules by Valley City

Phoenix ties restoration to the age of the street. Its Street Pavement Cut Policy says "any pavement cut into an existing pavement older than 24 months will require a slurry seal and/or microseal treatment." That treatment runs the half width of an arterial or collector, or the full width of a local street, for at least 25 feet in both directions from the cut.

For a street 24 months old or younger, it's heavier: an asphalt mill and overlay across the full width of every impacted lane, 25 feet past the cut each way, plus the slurry seal. The policy's own FAQ says it "applies to everyone from a single family residential home to a large commercial development." The policy rests on City Code 31-49.1: whoever damages a public street while working in the right of way repairs it at their own cost.

The parts, in short:

• Every cut, any age: crack fill and seal at the patch edges, then a slurry or microseal strip.
• New street: add a mill and overlay of every lane you touched.
• The only exception: one cut under two square feet on a permit, or keyhole coring under two feet across.
• Paperwork: one Civil Pavement Restoration (CPR) permit for the whole project, fee by cut area with a $300 minimum, plus a bond.

• New street. Phoenix: final acceptance less than two years before the cut. Mesa, Glendale, Chandler and Surprise count from construction, reconstruction or renovation, and Mesa and Glendale also count routine street maintenance.
• Mill and overlay (or inlay). Grinding off the top layer of asphalt and repaving it. The expensive part.
• Slurry seal and microseal. Thin emulsion coatings spread over the surface. Cheaper, but they cover a long strip.
• Pavement restoration fee. A fee paid to the city on top of your own repair, to offset the shorter life of a cut street. Mesa and Glendale charge it for five years after paving.
• Payment in lieu. Phoenix lets you pay the city to do the treatment instead of doing it yourself.

Anyone who cuts, bores, trenches or potholes a public street: plumbers, utility contractors, developers, and homeowners buying a single tap permit. Phoenix's policy names single-family homes and large commercial projects alike.

It does not apply to private drives and private accessways. Phoenix's FAQ says so directly, because an HOA or other private owner maintains them. Private parking lots follow your own lease or CC&Rs, not the city policy.

A Phoenix restaurant needs a new sewer tap and a water tap on the same street. One CPR permit covers both cuts, with one bond sized to the total cut area. The owner can have the contractor do the slurry seal or pay the city in lieu.

A Glendale office's lateral fails under a street resurfaced last spring. The two-year ban applies, but a failed building service with no other route is one of the listed exceptions. With a cut inside one year of renovation, the permittee mills and overlays every impacted lane.

The same repair done trenchless. Lining or bursting from pits dug outside the pavement can keep most of the job off the new street. It isn't automatic, though: Mesa and Glendale list boring among the restricted work, so a bore under new pavement still goes to the city engineer.

An Avondale patch sinks after six months. The city can send a written notice, and if it's ignored, do the repair and bill the cost plus 15 percent.

Find out the street's age before you design the route.

1. 1Check the pavement age. Phoenix says a pavement-age GIS map will be available; if no data exists, the policy treats the street as older than 24 months.
2. 2Route around new pavement when you can, using the alley, the parkway strip or a bore, especially in Mesa, Glendale, Chandler and Surprise.
3. 3If you must cut, document the exception (emergency, lost essential service, or building service with no other feasible route) with the right-of-way permit application.
4. 4Buy the restoration permit and post the bond. In Phoenix it's a CPR permit from Planning & Development's civil permits counter; the policy lists the Street Transportation Utility Section, 602-534-6999, for questions.
5. 5Restore to the city's detail (MAG standards in Scottsdale) and keep the patch in good shape for the maintenance period, a year in Avondale.

• "We only have to patch the trench." Phoenix requires a treated strip at least 25 feet past the cut in both directions, even on old streets.
• "An emergency means no permit." In Mesa, Glendale, Chandler and Surprise, an emergency is an exception to the two-year ban, not to the permit or the restoration fee.
• "Homeowners are exempt." Phoenix's policy applies to a single-family tap the same as a subdivision.
• "Temporary asphalt is fine until the city gets around to it." Scottsdale doesn't allow temporary pavement sections.

Phoenix charges an investigation and remediation fee for street work done without the required permit (City Code Chapter 31, Article III). Avondale bills the cost of fixing a neglected patch plus 15 percent, and Glendale can issue cease and desist orders to crews working without a valid encroachment and pavement cut permit on site.

If you're weighing a street cut against a trenchless route for a commercial sewer line, HQ does sewer repair and right-of-way plumbing across the Valley and gives free estimates.