Comments on: Atlanta’s Personal Responsibility Failure: Sidewalks

By: Rob MacKenna

Rob MacKenna — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 17:27:43 +0000

Actually, with an easement, the property owner still owns the property, but whoever the easement is in favor of (presumably the City here) has the permanent right to use the easement for whatever the purpose is in the original grant of the easement.

So, yeah, they pretty much get you coming and going. There are ways to extinguish an easement, but none of them would probably apply here.

By: karass

karass — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 12:40:38 +0000

Good point. And the converse of that is true too. Why is it that a few outspoken neighbors are allowed to successfully petition to BAR sidewalks when they don’t own that land and having sidewalks benefits the whole community more than it hurts them as individuals? The fact that they planted or installed a sprinkler system without permission on that land should not factor in. The response to claims of storm runoff issues should be to resolve the storm runoff issues and building variances not ban sidewalks because of a noisy few. A true referendum in the affected neighborhood should be held.

By: Ridgelandistan

Ridgelandistan — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 11:40:30 +0000

Someone help me understand the legal theory behind forcing a homeowner to pay for installation and maintenance of public infrastructure on public land.

Try putting a retaining wall on the easement in front of your home and, very quickly, the city will let you know who actually owns that land.

By: Mitch

Mitch — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 22:25:10 +0000

In Madison, WI, where I live, property-owners are financially responsible for sidewalk repairs.

But most people don’t take care of their sidewalks on their own initiative. Normally, the city goes through a neighborhood at regular intervals, inspects the sidewalks, and marks the spots that need replacement.

Then they hire a contractor to make the repairs, and they assess the property-owners for the cost. If you can’t pay the bill right away, the city amortizes the cost (at a reasonable interest rate) over several years, and adds it to the property tax bill.

I think I’d prefer to have the city take responsibility for sidewalks, and add the cost to the general tax levy. But the existing system works reasonably well, and broken sidewalks are pretty rare in Madison.

By: Katie M.

Katie M. — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 17:59:20 +0000

Here in LA we struggle with the same issue.

One UCLA professor suggests that point-of-sale sidewalk repairs are a better solution, and if you check out my post on the subject (http://wherethesidewalkstarts.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-fix-for-local-sidewalks.html) you’ll see some comments from folks in other parts of the country that describe how their cities get creative with funding sidewalk repairs. There are much better solutions to our sidewalk troubles, if only we could actually implement them!