Fix that sidewalk!

Miya Shay highlights an issue on which I'd like to see some action.

Yesterday, between all the babble about employee unions, several council members actually talked about something that you and I use daily: sidewalks! Mainly, Council Member Sue Lovell's not too happy that a builder bulldozing a house took a large chunk of city sidewalk along. Therefore, kids walking home in this Montrose neighborhood (near Woodhead and W. Alabama) will either walk through gunk or walk on a busy street. Yuck! But alas, Houston's sidewalk ordinance only requires builders to put back a sidewalk when they build. So, if a builder puts up homes right away, great! If they leave it empty for months.. there is nothing the city can do. So now, they are considering whether to toughen up the sidewalk ordinance. Sue Lovell would like to see builders put something down, even just some gravel or boards, within a few weeks of tearing up a sidewalk.

I wholeheartedly endorse this effort, and would plead with Council Member Lovell to go farther with it. In 2005, a little multiplex that sat on a double lot a block from my house was torn down, with two houses eventually being built in its place. When the old structure was demolished, a large chunk of the sidewalk was taken out as well, as in the case cited above. It was many months before it was replaced - basically, there was a hole in the walk until after the second house had been completed. As this is one of the usual paths I take to walk my dog, it was a major pain in the tuchus, especially during and after rainstorms. I cursed the developer's name many, many times for the duration.

In the end, the replacement sidewalk was better than what was there before, and the folks who bought those houses are super cool, so everything turned out well. But it was still a huge inconvenience for a long time. I say there should be a real sidewalk in place within two weeks of the tear out, with fines that accumulate for every day past the deadline that it's missing. If there's some valid construction reason why a ripped-out sidewalk can't be fully replaced before the house is built, I'd be willing to accept a stopgap solution as Lovell is proposing. But what we have now stinks, and I sincerely hope Lovell is successful in getting something done about this.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on December 08, 2006 to Local politics | TrackBack