Local

There Are Exactly Two Legal Ways to Open a Kerb Here

Burlington does not just permit the work at the street, it prescribes the method. Which makes the city code the sharpest bid-comparison tool you have, and it costs nothing to use.

Updated September 2026 · Burlington Concrete

Most municipalities tell you that work at the street needs a permit and leave the technique to the trade. This city goes further and says how it may be done, in enough detail that a homeowner can hold a quote against it.

That detail is worth twenty minutes of your time even though a contractor will handle the application, because every clause below converts into a question, and the answers sort local experience from confidence very quickly.

Before anything: the permit, and the phone call

The code is unambiguous that nobody may construct any curb and gutter, sidewalk or driveway approach without first obtaining a permit from the Department of Public Works. Replacement is not carved out. Beyond the permit itself, DPW expects to be told before an apron is disturbed.

Fees are banded by the depth of the work rather than charged as one flat figure, with the shallower band being the usual case for sidewalk and apron work. Get the current numbers from DPW at application, not from a contractor's memory.

The method rules, which is where this city is unusual

Item	What Ch. 274 requires
Opening a kerb, option one	Remove and replace the entire curb and gutter section
Opening a kerb, option two	Saw the back of the curb off horizontally
Explicitly prohibited	Sawing the curb head off vertically
Tying in new curb	Two driven half-inch tie rods in the pan of the gutter, at both ends of the pour
Minimum section	No curb section shorter than four feet
Under the curb	Four inch gravel base
Finished heights	An inch and a half at the back of the curbline, flow line at one inch
Restoration edges	Every edge of the concrete restoration saw cut
Apron repair	Repaired in kind, and DPW told before it is disturbed

Each line above is cited at the foot of the page. What follows is how to use them.

Why the prohibition is the most useful line in the code

Of everything in that table, the banned method is the one that tells you the most about a bidder, because it removes the shortcut.

Taking the head off a curb with a vertical cut is quick. It needs less machinery, generates less spoil, and gets a crew into the driveway sooner. It is also not allowed here. So a quote built around it is either priced for a job that will not be permitted, or priced by somebody who has not looked.

You do not need to know anything technical to use this. Ask which of the two permitted methods they intend to use at the kerb. A contractor who works this city answers in a sentence. The answer you are listening for is a choice between two known options, not a general reassurance.

The dimensional clauses, and what they stop

The tie rods, the four foot minimum section and the gravel base underneath all exist for one reason: to stop a short patch of new curb being dropped into a gap where it will settle independently of everything either side of it.

The finished heights matter for a different reason. The curbline is part of how this city moves water along a street. A curb rebuilt at the wrong height does not just look off, it changes where water goes, and the consequence lands on the next property along rather than on the one that paid for the work.

The saw cut requirement on every edge of the restoration is the reason a properly done reinstatement here has clean straight boundaries rather than ragged ones. It is easy to see when you walk past finished jobs, and it is a fair thing to ask to be shown.

Let the permit do the interrogating

There is a shortcut to comparing bids in this city and it is the permit itself. Because DPW asks about method, depth and reinstatement, a contractor genuinely intending to pull it has already had to think through the parts of the job that a casual quote skates over.

So the strongest single question is not about price. It is: are you pulling the DPW permit for this, and which method are you using at the kerb. Hesitation there is more informative than any number on the page.

Where this sits in your timeline

1. Confirm who is applying to DPW, in writing.
2. Establish the kerb method, from the two available.
3. Permit issued, and DPW notified before the apron is touched.
4. Then the crew.

None of this is expensive. All of it is slow if it happens in the wrong order, and a driveway crew standing on a street they are not yet permitted to open is the most expensive kind of slow.

What the work itself costs, alongside the national figures, is in our Burlington driveway cost guide. If you have not yet decided that a rebuild is the right project, begin with when a driveway actually needs replacing.