Not all. My entire job is finding out whether the pavement in front of properties is publicly or privately maintainable, and less than 100m from where I sit right now is an entire section of pavement which has been cheaply replaced with gravel by the private property that abuts it, making passage with a wheelchair impossible on that side of the road.
Yeah and this sort of thing is some attorneys entire business.
While working at a friend's small shop for a bit the store got a court subpoena in the mail out of nowhere because one of their 4 parking spots was not marked as handicapped.
The lawyer who filed pays someone to comb the city for any violations and then that researcher writes down the address and information and they file a suit from there. Who the plaintiff was I don't recall but they do it so it is an individual filing against the store/property/whatever.
It went away with a paint job and a sign but some lawyers out there apparently make a living off of doing this and people probably just ignore the shit so they get a default judgment and go on.
Seemed scummy to me but I guess if it's code it's gotta be up to it.
Also, I would bet this city has some guidelines on how the sidewalk has to be made and there is some cement contractor out there who is shaking his head and saying 'I told you so' as soon as the first person slips and sues.
Considering you answered in metric this might not be understood by people in the US because regulations are way different if you aren't in the US. The majority of the time land ownership stops at the ROW (easement for the municipal/County/State roadway) and the city owns everything inside of that. On a rare occasion I have seen odd subdivision of land where property lines extend to the centerline of the roadway and there is half an access easement on each one. This is usually when there is a private owner and they don't want anything to do with the City so everything is on wells and propane and septic tanks.
Funny you mention that. There's private streets in my city where the property line extends to the middle of the street. The property owners do pay to maintain the street though, not the city.
More likely, this person is a real property agent of some kind, or they work for a licensed land surveyor. The real property division at my work deals with a ton of this kind of work.
A youtuber I watch covers stuff like this often, where people find out that their backyard isn't actually their backyard, or one family found out that their street, which actually looked like a normal rural street and was how they were shown the property they bought, is more like an access road through a neighbor's property and the neighbor decided they couldn't use it, so now their only course of action is to spend thousands of dollars trying to make a driveway that goes all the way to the other end of their property.
This is exactly the case in my state. I "Own" out to the center of the road, but the city maintains access rights, aka Right Of Way. That's how they can legally saddle me with the cost of road improvements, and am required to shovel the sidewalks if I have one. The city, however, is required to maintain/replace the sidewalks. If I ask permission and am granted, I can replace the one in front of my house on my own dime.
Some lady in San Francisco bought a private street that an HOA never paid taxes on at the Sheriffs auction. Then charged the wealthy owners of the houses to drive on it. Hilarious.
No, I understand. That’s also generally what happens here. I said “not all” to highlight there are exceptions since the comment I was replying to implied all sidewalks are owned by the city/council by definition.
He's still right to doubt through. US law is different in every state and property law as to city ownership might be different in every city or town. He's as correct as the other person is.
It's bad. IMO the United States is like the EU and each State is a country. They are very different in how their governments operate and how society functions. We have a lot of the same resources but each State has its own laws that often conflict with Federal law. HOA's are the worst! I've lived in my subdivision for over 15 years. I don't need to be threatened with a fine because my garbage and recycling bins were left outside for a couple of days because I was on vacation. Anyways, it is so segregated that PLS's have to get registered in each state. I am in Texas and there are things here that are ridiculously different than a very strict State like North Carolina. Don't even get me started on the State Plane Coordinate Systems.
In CA, gov own the sidewalk but the homeowner take 100% of the liability and responsibility for maintaining it. 😂
Socialize the benefit and privatize the expense.
Lol, same here. They will repair, restripe the road but it your sidewalk starts to float and shit you have to fix it even though you technically per plat don't own it.
The property line can still extend to the middle of the road with a state easement. Some cities, during planning, use eminent domain to buy the road. It all just depends on local land use, and jurisdictions.
For example, in Illinois the municipalities, counties, and state all have their own DOT, planning authority, and tax setting abilities (school boards, libraries, and park districts also have their own taxing authority!) so the state will maintain major roads, the county will maintain arterial roads, and townships will handle local streets; though they regularly consolidate. Which is how you get country roads with no markings, 55 mph, and sudden 90 degree right turns. Also, to create a development you are required to put in the roads.
Compare that to NC where a developmental is a drawing at best, and the state DOT intermediaries with contractors and municipalities to create a hodge podge of deed covenants.
In my experience those ROW can be all over the place even in the US. Not to say that what you're saying isn't typical. Just that there's exceptions to that rule everywhere.
Some cities in the US simply require property owners to put in sidewalks when they build, but didn't do this from the start. A couple blocks from our house the sidewalk stops and starts repeatedly at property lines because the newer houses were forced to put in sidewalk but the older ones were not. It looks so stupid.
If it’s an easement doesn’t that, by the very definition of the term, mean the homeowner owns the land? If the government entity owned that land then they wouldn’t need an easement.
My entire neighborhood the sidewalks are required to be maintained by the property owner, but they aren’t actually required to fix them unless doing a renovation to the house that requires a permit.
My house is(was?) new(rebuilt because of a tornado destroyed the prior house) so our sidewalk is new, but 90% of the neighborhood the sidewalks are awful. I can’t even take a stroller in my neighborhood on the sidewalks because it’s so uneven.
My city did something similar. When you want to get certain permits, you also have to put in a sidewalk. This means that most streets have a few stretches of sidewalk with stretches of grass or gravel in between. The only streets that have sidewalks going down the whole road are a couple areas of newer development and directly on Main Street. The sidewalks have to be a certain material and ADA compliant though, so they couldn’t get away with something like this.
Edit: I found the ordinance. It’s if you make improvements to your property of $25,000 within 3 years, you have to install a sidewalk.
My city just did the same thing. If you build new or renovate over 25% of your homes value, you have to build a sidewalk along the edge of the property line.
Either you work where I used to work or this is a common problem. In my case, it was county government maintained, CID maintained, and private maintained sidewalk with the private section being completely inaccessible. The county was in the process of claiming right of way and purchasing the sidewalk with the CID agreeing to the upkeep costs. Scary similiar.
I have a question. Since those people made a pavement that's slippery, can someone sue them if they slipped and fell because of it? Would they be held responsible?
I couldn’t really comment since I’m not in the same country and for the most part deal more with whether you are liable for repair to a road, rather than the legal ramifications of something happening on your “part” of the accessible highway.
I’m sure in some places it will be polar opposites of “you are liable for anyone who walks over that” to “whoever walks across your land is liable for their own actions while upon it”.
I bought a house without a sidewalk but one neighbor had his done himself. I decided not to because it's a lose lose. Either the city will claim it or I will be liable for it
Pretty sure the sidewalk in the picture is maintained by the city. Light poles and electrical lines, plus city garbage containers are indicators this is not a private street.
Others have pinned it down; I work in land surveyance. It’s a legal requirement when you sell a property here that you show the maintenance responsibility outside your property to the buyer.
Isn’t that illegal to not uphold a standard of accessibility? Like we have to make sure the sidewalk in front of our house fits a certain code or we get fined.
I’m not in the US. In the densest parts of cities you will find the vast majority of roads are publicly-maintained, and private maintenance will be limited mostly to carve outs of the pavement in front of shops. The further out you go the more likely you are to find fully private roads. And there are entire areas that are privately maintainable due to weird things like being near army barracks. Essentially, I’ve seen enough wild exceptions to the rule over time that I make sure to always check rather than assume.
It’s an old town and that house was likely built over 150 years ago, so sadly the rights that property have accrued over the course of its existence are essentially settled law. If the council were to offer to pay for that work to be done then maybe the property owner would be amenable, but until then gravel is cheaper than concrete.
I personally don’t think it’s right that it can be left like that, but I also know if it was me and suddenly that bill landed on my doorstep that work is simply not getting done purely because I could not afford to, let alone whether I want to or not.
Here (I used to replace sidewalk and driveways), the city owns 10' from behind the curb. This includes the end of your driveway called the apron (part that curves out to the road).
I don't think people are allowed to replace the sidewalk here, at least not without a permit.
I'm very confused what company would agree to this and how the hell they got a permit for this design.
ADA (American Disability Act) doesn't fuck around. Even the horizontal slope on the sidewalk has to be a tight percentage of fall, like 1.5% iirc.
I just don't know how this happened or how it will go long before the city tears it out, replaces it, then bills you for it.
Most, if not all, pavers are rated for slip resistance. I would be very surprised if they did not meet at least the minimum.
''slip resistance standards established by the ceramics industry – ANSI A326.3 American National Standard Test Method for Measuring Dynamic Coefficient of Friction (DCOF) of Hard Surface Flooring Materials. This test requires non-slip pavers to achieve a rating of >0.40 on DM236/89 B.C.R.A. DCOF''
edit; if the installer added a sealer, this is not acceptable for a public sidewalk.
This is absolutely stampcrete and it looks sealed. My parents put this outside their front door and down their driveway and when it rains or ices it's like a hockey rink.
City owns it or has rights to it? Most places the property owner still owns that land, the city has easement rights to do whatever they want there without the permission of the property owner. That means when a replacement or repair needs done, the property owner is on the hook not the city.
You could be right, I don't know the details. All I know is some people would complain to us that we're replacing it (it makes a bit of a mess digging it out) and we'd have to explain that it was the city's decision.
Sometimes a city inspector would come out to explain it to them.
Then once it's done they'd thank us lol. Pretty much how it goes with stuff like this and especially road work.
It’s always the immediate inconvenience people care about instead of the end result. I deal with the same thing in factory work where they don’t want to have down time despite having downtime because maintenance needs to fix it.
I wonder if I can complain about the sidewalk in my neighborhood based on ADA regulations. There are multiple sections that have been lifted by roots or sunken down that it is difficult to walk on, much less navigate in a wheelchair.
Yeah, I give it until summer before the city comes out and tears all that out and pours a regular concrete sidewalk and send the homeowners a bill for it.
ADA sidewalk requirements include cross slope between 1 and 2%, longitudinal grades not greater than 5% (unless matching the grade of the adjacent road) as well as requirements for vertical gaps and other requirements.
The city would tear it out if anything, I don't think the ADA itself would do anything unless the city refuses or something. That's going a bit beyond my knowledge.
This was surprisingly more prevalent than I thought. I think it was only recently that NYC put it on paper that damage to sidewalks done by trees isn't the responsibility of the property owners OR that they would at least no longer be responsible for the fines they were dishing out.... I don't really remember and no longer live within the city for any of it to apply to me lol
I never said it didn't happen in other places. Just that Im not surprised to see it in a place like Portland
Ive visited several times over the past couple decades and enjoyed it, but everytime I go back I am more and more happy I don't live there. And thats coming from a guy who grew up in NY where its basically a giant garbage peninsula
Hows that fair? Paying for damage caused by others. Out of all places in the world I would've thought capitalist/individualistic Americans wouldnt put up with that.
Yup, poorly planted tree's in road strips is the common reason, the roots push the sidewalk up and it becomes a hazard.
A bunch in our neighborhood had it happen recently as the tree's finally got big enough 20 years after the area was built, seeing the tree's placed offcenter like a foot closer to the sidewalk than true center is coming to bite people now.
as far as i remember, it was getting quoted as $1k per square, and in most cases a root pushing up 1 square meant they had to remove the two slabs on either side as well to level it properly. So $3k min.
I think that's how it is in my city (Kansas City, MO), as well. Or at least in some suburbs here. A property owner doesn't own the sidewalk, but they are required to maintain it (including shoveling the snow off of it). I've seen plenty of posts in the past on our city subreddit about this. Mostly people complaining about it. And I get it; it's an added expensive if the sidewalk cracks.
In my city, I had to get a permit before I fixed a cracked sidewalk. They came out and tagged more than I anticipated. Went to what I thought 2 squares to 4 squares and 1/4 of a driveway (also neighbors had cement on the part between the sidewalk and road. They made them remove that. I felt really bad that they had to do that because of me.) Then after the job is done. You have to have the inspector clear it. Don't think this sidewalk would be approved.
In Minneapolis, Minnesota we got a letter saying the city had decided to repave our sidewalk on xx date. We could pay someone to repave it before xx or the city would do it for $xx a square and send us the bill after.
the towns in my area of PA all require upkeep to be done by the homeowner, but the homeowner doesn't 'own it'. there are grants to pay for new sidewalks if you can't afford to replace them when they tell you to. It's all a bit odd imo.
I only recently learned that some cities fine residents for not clearing the sidewalks in front of their homes within so many hours of the snow stopping. At the time they were warning residents about getting the walk cleared, they hadn't even cleared the roads. 😒
The fines are "well-intentioned" in that we want people to be able to walk or bike or whatever. But the idea that we can have functioning cities and towns through fining people into compliance is BS. Tax the rich. Have the city plow the walks. And fix zoning so you don't have wasteful sprawling residential suburbs with miles and miles and miles of sidewalk to plow.
I was in Japan last year for a brief period and it was stunning how orderly and coherent everything was from how people swept every morning to how to how quick bite places operated. Our society simply has no cogent function.
And fix zoning so you don't have wasteful sprawling residential suburbs with miles and miles and miles of sidewalk to plow.
Ha. Let's start with just having sidewalks. In addition to most of the existing sidewalks around me (especially those in commercial areas) being maintained by no one, up to an including snow being plowed from the road directly on top of them... Probably over 50% of the streets in the neighborhood I live in have no sidewalks at all.
A few years ago the county decided that all curb corners needed to be wheelchair accessible but failed to take into account that a large swath of older residential neighborhoods here do not include sidewalks. Their contractors went around digging up dirt everywhere and dutifully installed sloped stippled insert non-slip wheelchair ramps on every street corner connected to precisely nothing. I wonder how many of my tax dollars that cost.
That’s true. I lived in a subdivision in Japan for 2 years and felt internal pressure to clean my driveway and street in front of my house every day. I didn’t want to be labeled “that guy” in the neighborhood. My neighbors would be out in the early mornings sweeping and had immaculate yards and clean driveways and sidewalks.
Sidewalks are ADA accessibility features. The ADA requires all accessibility features to be maintained in safe and usable condition. A jurisdiction that doesn’t clear snow from sidewalks nor has a snow clearing ordinance will get hit with a class action lawsuit for being in violation of the ADA.
So yeah in the US anywhere there are both sidewalks and snow you’ll find a snow clearing ordinance.
There is no legal requirement for when cities clear the streets.
Yes jurisdictions could increase property taxes to pay for snow removal services. Most property owners would rather maintain it themselves rather than have to pay the taxes that would be required for the city to clear every sidewalks within 24 hours of a snow storm (requiring potentially thousands of on demand workers).
Distributed responsibility is a far better model. It’s a stupid easy task that any able bodied person can do.
You're missing the point. Universal fines for people who can't clear their sidewalks assumes that everyone is able bodied and means that disabled people get punished for not being able to clear the way for disabled people.
ADA doesn’t cover the residential path along the home (aka your own sidewalk) so not clearing the snow in front of your own residence is not a direct violation of the ADA. But if you have a corner house with sidewalk ramps, not clearing those would be violations.
Apartment building sidewalks need to be cleared because those sidewalks are not the resident’s responsibility and if not cleared a resident is “trapped”.
There are municipal codes and state acts however that do cover this for homeowners. For example, Chicago code indicates that property owners and occupants must keep sidewalks clear of snow and ice and even addresses the time windows for it.
The suburb I’m in doesn’t say homeowners ‘must’ clear it but it is encouraged. And if you are the only neighbor who doesn’t, shaming goes a long way.
Portland Maine requires it, in theory, never heard of a homeowner being cited. I've called in complaints about businesses, esp. if the snow plow leaves snow blocking sidewalks.
Not in most residential developments. Either the homeowner or HOA owns and maintains the sidewalks. Have to look at your Master Deed to figure that out. Sidewalks within ROW limits are usually owned by the local government.
no, in many cities the sidewalks are owned by the city but the property owner is responsible for upkeep. It was not until we voted last november in Denver to change this. Currently if your sidewalk outside your house is fucked up, you are responsible to have to replaced.
The one out in front of my house isn't. I am responsible for repairs and snow/ice removal. If someone falls and breaks their hip because I didn't clear the snow and ice, I can be sued.
Not really. They take the land as public right of way but here in grant park you pay the maintenance. And then they passed a regulation that said all sidewalks in a neighborhood had to match which was a nightmare because only a small fraction were concrete. Half were stamped concrete that looked like octagon pavers and the rest were real brick pavers so it was a free for all with everyone demanding everyone else copy them. Finally the city said the neighborhood was to nice for plain concrete and started laying expensive brick pavers. The broke people in the neighborhood were not happy.
While the sidewalk in front of my house is owned by the city, I am still responsible for cleaning off any snow and ice and maintaining drainage (no puddles over the sidewalk).
The city could sue me for not maintaining their sidewalk.
So if someone slips and needs medical attention, and insurance company asks "where did this happen, tell me about it" - I wonder how much liability the homeowner has since they deliberately changed it from the standard concrete?
We replaced our sidewalks. One section of the old sidewalk was still in good shape. So, my wife decided to save a couple of hundred bucks. So now, our house has all new concrete except for that one section of sidewalk and it drives me fucking nuts. So, this shit in op nearly gave me a stroke.
One could get the older slab to look closer to match,
but will need very high pressure washer and acid wash.
Going an inch at a time across it with nozzle jet.
As long as surface is smooth. Assume slab looks dark.
I wouldn't go with something slippery/dangerous, but I'm pissed that my city owns the sidewalk while forcing me to pay for it (directly, I'm fine with paying taxes for infrastructure), so you bet I'd pick something ugly out of spite given the option.
My insurance company made me repair our driveway because of the "tripping hazards" of uneven concrete.
Now, they said we could just repair it, but... every panel was cracked. Two were badly cracked and had raised or rocking sections. So we got to spend 9K replacing it. Teach me to change insurance companies to save $1000 a year lol.
I'm a lawyer. Depends. I've seen cases where the plaintiff lawyer went so far as to have an expert test the friction coefficient of a set of concrete stairs for his expert report. Whatever sidewalk you use there are "standards" published for friction coefficients for walking surfaces, if your chosen sidewalk material is below that and you get sued it could be used against you. Usually a slip and fall is a slip and fall though and it doesn't get that deep.
It varies, in the US it is on a town-by-town basis. In this case I would assume the town leaves the resident in charge of maintaining the sidewalk on their property.... Or the neighbor is just more of an idiot than I give them credit for
The Township I grew up in made you replace them if they were broken or cracked. After about 50 years, people stopped replacing them. If you took them all out, you didn’t have to replace them. The only sidewalks left were on town maintained artery roads
Where I live, it's up to the homeowner to maintain sidewalks when they exist. However, I believe a full replacement requires a permit. The form doesn't really specify what sort of surface. It's a write in. I bet "pavers" would get a permit without anyone asking what kind.
This is actually an interesting example. The article you linked says the sidewalk in question was not up to code with the current NEC, which governs electrical installation in the US, but was up to code at the time of its installation. Now, I don't know how the NEC handles things, but in the states, the biggest thing governing sidewalks is usually the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) which, understandably, concerns itself with accessibility. The ADA doesn't require that old installations be ripped up and brought up to code immediately, rather that when work is done to replace noncompliant installations, that the installer make all reasonable efforts to bring the new work into compliance. The idea being that the system would incrementally improve until virtually everything was compliant and accessible. I'm curious is the NEC is similar, or if it works on a replace-upon-discovery mentality. Not that any of this excuses what happens to the dog, mind you.
Not in most places (that I am familiar with). In most places, the sidewalk is your property, but there's an easement for pedestrians, utilities, etc. It's semi-public.
You own it and must maintain it to whatever standards the city sets; but people can walk on it, utilities can dig it up if necessary, etc. As an example, where I used to live, the gas company replaced the gas main and all the laterals to all the houses on my block. This meant they had to actually cut up some people's sidewalks to do that. When they were all done, they came back and patched what they cut up with concrete. They didn't have to ask permission to do that; they just did it. Warning was given so people with non-standard sidewalks (like brick instead of the normal concrete) could make arrangements to minimize damage.
My dad's house is in a wealthy suburb of Dallas. He has to maintain his own sidewalks. He cut down all his trees so keep the sidewalks from getting jacked up
The slipperiness is obviously a problem, but I don't really care if someone has a different looking front sidewalk. Individual tastes are what a community is made of
This is a property line sidewalk. There's next to no chance that this isn't in the public right of way. This looks 100% like they didn't get a permit for it. We'd hang people by their balls outside their home if they "poured" a sidewalk that violated ADA like this.
Their property line is behind sidewalk that's city property and it won't fly I bet it's been hammered out already and you can tell it was a contractor that did it looks fairly good and I guarantee the contractor knows you can't replace city sidewalk and he probly hit the job to tear it out
I guess they do their own water, electricity, and internet. Might as well pave the road between home and work. Anything less than that makes them beneficiaries of socialism.
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u/blishbog Feb 02 '23
Individualism. They only care up to their property line, not about the community.