I put a piac item in back in 2019 to connect a neighborhood to parks better with brand new sidewalks where there were none. The city quoted $64,000 per house.FangKC wrote: ↑Tue Apr 27, 2021 8:11 pm Or until recently, the homeowner being responsible for fixing broken sidewalks, which in some cases could cost thousands. Some properties have sidewalks and some have none. So one homeowner has the burden of shoveling -- or paying someone to do it -- while someone across the street doesn't. One homeowner used to have to spend thousands if their sidewalks required repair, while their neighbor didn't. Many property owners in older neighborhoods live in poverty, or are low fixed-incomes.
I'm all for property owners clearing snow. However, sidewalks are infrastructure. The property owner may never walk on their own--or any--sidewalks in the neighborhood. But, all their neighbors do -- even the ones across the street who don't have sidewalks on their property.
If a neighborhood was developed with sidewalks on only one side of the street, then sidewalk repair should be a shared financial burden, and not the responsibility alone of the property owner who has misfortune to live on that side of the street.
Fortunately, the City removed that single responsibility for sidewalk repair from property owners.
Things are so badly managed that the city thinks paying the cost of a house on the east side to add sidewalks is reasonable.
I'm more and more glad our new city manager isn't from KC and had to opportunity to replace a lot of the heads of departments (people leaving the position). We need wholesale change from top to bottom.