City charging residents for sidewalk replacement

[morgin]

Hey all,

I will preface this by saying I haven't seen the actual letter (will look when I get home tonight) but my gf texted to tell me the city apparently sent us a letter saying they are going to be replacing the sidewalk in front of our place and we will need to pony up 2 g's or something to pay half the cost.

Anyone familiar with this? I struck me as kind of wtf but obviously reserving judgment until I can read the full letter.

Thanks!

[Nyah]

As fotze says, you'll have the option of paying it off over your property taxes. They just paved our alleyway and it cost each household roughly $3200. We had the option to pay upfront or spread it out over 15 years of prop. taxes.

[morgin]

I would have thought sidewalk maintenance and repair/replacement costs are a general city infrastructure cost and not something they could lob a local improvement levy on. Strange.

[Bean]

Originally Posted by morgin

I would have thought sidewalk maintenance and repair/replacement costs are a general city infrastructure cost and not something they could lob a local improvement levy on. Strange.

I believed the same as this poster and thought that you would pay for sidewalk repairs only if you wanted to add a driveway/parking pad and needed to change the curb's shape to accomodate the vehicle.

[mykalberta]

In Red Deer the homeowner only gets charged if the sidewalk gets replaced, if its repaired they dont pay anything and the city simply fills it with asphalt.

[morgin]

http://www.calgary.ca/Transportation...rovements.aspx is my answer I guess!

Kind of annoying since we personally don't use the sidewalk at all (and we get heavy traffic of people walking to a shopping complex and cutting down our street/through our alley to do so who would account for 90% of the use) so I kind am of the opinion this really is not a true "local improvement" that we should fund directly vs coming from a shared city fund for sidewalk replacement. Not sure which would be more fair. I don't see local improvement fees levied against suburbanites for all the interchange work that needs to be done to support their parasite lifestyles.

[Bunk]

Yes, this is a dumb policy that needs to be changed. There is no way that the basic replacement of a sidewalk should be considered a "local improvement" - it's just maintenance. Everything else of this nature, whether it's the repaving of the street in front of your house or water/sewer pipes is just paid out of general taxes.

However, in residential areas if it's a City initiated replacement it's 50/50 adjacent owners and City. On Commercial streets it's 75/25 adjacent owners and City.

There was Notice of Motion at Council by Alderman Carra, supported by the Mayor (passed) to re-examine this policy. It passed, but thus far the difficulty has been finding the necessary funding to replace it.

I have one of these special assessments (15 yr period) on my property taxes for a 100 year old sidewalk the City replaced about 3 years ago.

We're working on it...

[morgin]

Originally Posted by Bunk

I have one of these special assessments (15 yr period) on my property taxes for a 100 year old sidewalk the City replaced about 3 years ago.

We're working on it...

Does the levy only show up on the tax roll or does the city register a caveat against title as well?

Anyone have experience buying/selling a property with a local improvement assessment imposed against it? I'm presuming the market is such that buyers can't demand payout prior to sale.

[longsuffering]

Originally Posted by morgin

I would have thought sidewalk maintenance and repair/replacement costs are a general city infrastructure cost and not something they could lob a local improvement levy on. Strange.

The problem is that everyone believes their sidewalk should be replaced at the city's expense, but typically doesn't want to pay to replace sidewalks on another block or in another community.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by morgin

Does the levy only show up on the tax roll or does the city register a caveat against title as well?

Anyone have experience buying/selling a property with a local improvement assessment imposed against it? I'm presuming the market is such that buyers can't demand payout prior to sale.

It's only on your property tax assessment.

[Julio]

I have both bought and sold with local improvement assessments on properties with no worries.

[morgin]

Originally Posted by longsuffering

The problem is that everyone believes their sidewalk should be replaced at the city's expense, but typically doesn't want to pay to replace sidewalks on another block or in another community.

That's why it should come from general funds though. Individual homeowners have zero control over the traffic on the sidewalk that is abutting their property. It hardly seems fair to anyone that in cases where the city approves development nearby that would increase sidewalk traffic (and proportionally increase wear and tear) that an individual should be responsible simply because they live nearby.

Sidewalks are common public property. Some get used more than others. It has next to zero to do with individual homeowners.

At the very least, increasing the amortization over a more reasonable lifecycle would be a start. 15 years is ridiculous. The sidewalks in my neighborhood are from the 80s. A concrete sidewalk in a residential area should have a projected lifecycle of longer than 15 years.

Sorry Bunk this kind of has me annoyed now.

[Bill Bumface]

If you have to pay for it yourself, can you just invite your I-talian friends over and buy them some pizza and beer instead? If your sidewalk is nice and freshly chemented will the city leave that stretch alone and just charge everyone else?

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by morgin

At the very least, increasing the amortization over a more reasonable lifecycle would be a start. 15 years is ridiculous. The sidewalks in my neighborhood are from the 80s. A concrete sidewalk in a residential area should have a projected lifecycle of longer than 15 years.

Sorry Bunk this kind of has me annoyed now.

You pay for them over 15 years, which seems a reasonable amount of time to spread the cost over. The sidewalks themselves should last 60 years+ except minor repairs. Nevertheless, it should come from general taxation, not immediately adjacent property owners.

[Rhettzky]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

If you have to pay for it yourself, can you just invite your I-talian friends over and buy them some pizza and beer instead? If your sidewalk is nice and freshly chemented will the city leave that stretch alone and just charge everyone else?

I'm pretty sure it has to be done by an indemnified contractor.

[Kerplunk]

I'd be pretty choked if the city came to me asking to pay for part of the sidewalk beside my house. The only time I really use it is when I shovel the damn thing (at a cost of a shovel per year), but it sees a lot of use by those in the cul-de-sac (who don't have any public walk) and people wandering around the area. These maintenance projects should definitely come out of the same pool as road maintenance.

[morgin]

Originally Posted by Bunk

You pay for them over 15 years, which seems a reasonable amount of time to spread the cost over. The sidewalks themselves should last 60 years+ except minor repairs. Nevertheless, it should come from general taxation, not immediately adjacent property owners.

Sorry, I worded that poorly. Didn't mean the lifecycle isn't projected longer than 15 years (I assume it is) but that the annual hit to property taxes should be tied to that lifecycle and not a reduced 15 year span if a property owner chooses to have the levy paid out over a period of time.

In this scenario, if we live in the property for 10 years after a sidewalk replacement, we pay 66.6% of the owner's cost of the sidewalk, while the next owner living there 10 years pays 33.3% over the first 5 years of their ownership and zero after. The successive owners after that get the benefit of the sidewalk at no cost, until the time it has to be replaced again, when the process starts over.

While I agree the whole scenario could be avoided with the funds coming from general taxation, it would also be more fair in the short term if the payment of the sidewalk was tied to the lifecycle. Interest costs would rise proportionally, so the overall cost would be even higher, but it's the fairest way to spread the cost. It shouldn't be like sidewalk roulette, where if you happen to own the adjacent property at the time the city decides to replace, you bear proportionally more cost than owners who have bought the property 10-15 years after a replacement (and may have to pay local improvement levies for 0-5 years while getting the benefit of a sidewalk with 70% of its lifecycle left).

I'm sure someone much smarter than me determined that a 15 year repayment was the sweet spot for fairness and keeping the interest costs at a reasonable level, but it still annoys me.

[Regulator75]

Perhaps you should add a toll to your section of sidewalk?

[MoneyGuy]

Double for Airdrie residents?

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Regulator75

Perhaps you should add a toll to your section of sidewalk?

Anything else is just socialism!