The ground is shifting.
But rather than let things slide, the Elizabethton Housing and Development Agency has approved a contract for work to keep it from getting worse.
The EHDA Board of Directors approved a contract for $105,000 with Inland Construction to stabilize a bank between 920 and 922 Pine Ridge Circle, to add a porch extension to a property on Spruce Lane and for heating and air conditioning repairs at the old Community Day Care unit in South Hills Estates.
EHDA Director Kelly Geagley said the agency noticed the hillside was shifting last year and a geothermal study was done. He said now that funding was available for the work to be done, it was being completed as a preventive measure before the bank slide gets any worse.
Geagley said the sliding that has occurred has not caused any damage to nearby apartment buildings or parking lot.
“It has not affected the buildings,” he said. “This is something we have been keeping an eye on. It is worse this year, so it’s being done as a preventative measure.”
Geagley said the plan was to go in the hillside and remove the dirt behind the slide. Then rock would be added and the ground would be leveled out. Geagley said the end product would resemble a French drain, which is a drainage option that uses rock to filter away excess water.
Another portion of the work is to extend a porch cover on an apartment building on Spruce Lane in the Pine Ridge apartment community.
Geagley said the current cover does not extend far enough and when there is rain or snow the moisture seeps along the edge of the building. He added that as more funding became available canopies would be added to other buildings.
The final part of the contract will be to make improvements to the heating and air conditioning system in the old Community Day Care unit at 820 Hemlock St.