Annapolis Residents Speak Out on Sidewalks

An ordinance proposed by the mayor , didn’t get a warm reception from residents at Monday night’s City Council meeting.

During a public hearing on the subject, roughly 14 people testified. And while many of them expressed different ideas and opinions for how to address the issue, the overwhelming majority who spoke said the city should be responsible for the repair.

“It’s rare that a proposal is so uniformly bashed,” Annapolis Mayor Josh Cohen said to the crowd after the hearing.

As the , the responsibility and liability for sidewalk repair used to belong to the homeowners until a few years ago when the city took on the responsibility and created a sidewalk fee to help fund it. After public complaints, that fee was soon repealed.

“It is sort of an insult to injury to get sidewalks back and be told that we could be fined or that liens would be placed against our properties because of sidewalks," said Michael Matthews, an Eastport resident. "[The city] didn’t even exercise that type of responsibility over itself when it held responsibility for its sidewalks.”

Karen Jennings, also an Eastport resident, said while her property doesn’t have an adjacent sidewalk, she would be willing to pay either through a sidewalk fund or increased property taxes to make sure that the responsibility stays with the city.

“I realize the city has serious budget issues that is causing re-examination of various expense categories and revenue sources, but I think the adoption of this bill would cause more problems then it would solve,” Ward One resident Bill Kardash said.

He added that “the city’s on-again, off-again approach to sidewalk maintenance is the real culprit.”

Doug Smith, vice president of the Ward One Residents Association, said while the group opposes the ordinance in its current form, members agreed it’s an issue that needs to be resolved and would like to work with the city to make that happen.

“We think a property owner should maintain his or her property and for us that’s kind of the core of the issue,” he said.

However, he raised concerns, including inconsistent property ownership and objects on the sidewalk, such as a city-planted tree.

“It’s like the old hand off in football, but this is a $23 million handoff,” Annapolis resident Tony Evans told the council.

Current State of Sidewalks

Before the hearing, Public Works Director David Jarrell said there are about 123 miles of sidewalks across the city, and about 16 miles of those are brick.

He noted that the city currently spends about $150,000 per year on sidewalks. He also said these are the really urgent projects, “but they don’t even come close to addressing the bulk of the issues.”

Jarrell said the current replacement value for city sidewalks is about $22 million, adding that, assuming that "useful service life for sidewalks is about 40 years," the city should be spending just more than $500,000 per year.

“But because we haven’t been spending that amount for a number of years, we have a backlog that we would need to catch up,” he said.

In 2009, Jarrell said the city assessed the sidewalks and determined it would cost about $1.5 million to address the immediate needs.

“So we really should be spending about $1.5 million to catch up and then about $500,000 to $550,000, somewhere in that range each year to keep up with the sidewalks that we have,” Jarrell said.

Next Steps

Cohen didn’t say exactly how the overwhelming testimony would impact the next policy steps moving forward.

“We heard unanimous opposition to this proposal, which frankly I’m happy to hear because it reaffirms that people all over the city feel that sidewalks are a public amenity and should be the city’s responsibility, but in terms of the next steps, how we make that happen and how we ensure the funding to cover it,” Cohen said.

Members of the council also had different takes on the matter.

“I believe that sidewalks are part of the public amenity and the city, after years of neglect to then just throw it back on the public is wrong,” Alderman Ross Arnett (D-8th Ward) said.

“I think it’s a matter of individual responsibility. Part of owning a house is maintaining the sidewalk,” Alderman Fred Paone (R-2nd Ward) said.