Our sidewalks in Athens aren’t crumbling because people don’t value them; they’re crumbling because of Ohio’s laws.
Let me explain.
In Ohio, property owners are responsible for repairing and replacing the sidewalks in front of their houses. This is a great law if your goal as a state is to never, ever pay to build, repair, or replace sidewalks. It is a terrible law if your goal is to walk anywhere.
Seeing as 98% of you said you wanted to walk places in the 2022 Pedestrian Accessibility Survey, I’m going to go ahead and say this law is not working for Athens. Like, it’s not working for the property owners who aren’t following it, it’s not working for the City employees tasked with an impossible job of enforcing it, it’s not working for the politicians who risk political suicide every time they bring it up, and, most of all, it’s not working for all of us who have to live with the results. It’s a poorly built law, and worst of all, we can’t change it as a city, because it’s a state law.
So what do we do? No, I didn’t say the City, I said we. What do we, the people living in Athens, want to do about this problem that we all are living with?
Here are the main options:
- Nothing. Sidewalks continue to crumble to dust. Oh well.
- Pros: We are already doing this. Inertia for the win!
- Cons: Everything.
- The City fines people $50 a day for not fixing the sidewalks in front of their house.
- Pros: Some sidewalks may be repaired or rebuilt.
- Cons: 25% of Athens’ sidewalks are crumbling, and Athens just doesn’t have enough Code Enforcement officers for massive amounts of paperwork to happen at scale; property owners would have to cough up several thousand dollars in one lump sum; we still end up with patchwork results. Fewer sidewalks may be built because having one becomes a liability. Some people may rip up their sidewalks.
- The Mayor just has the City fix them and bill property owners on their taxes later.
- Pros: Some sidewalks may get repaired or rebuilt. These sidewalks are done by professionals.
- Cons: See all the problems from #2, plus Athens would have to take out massive loans to pay for the repairs because we are broke; property owners would still have to cough up several thousand dollars over ten years; some people may lose their houses over not being able to pay the increased tax bill.
- The City offers some sort of subsidy people can apply for to repair or replace sidewalks. Like, 50%.
- Pros: Some sidewalks may be repaired or rebuilt. Some other Ohio cities have done this.
- Cons: Half of $6,000 is still $3,000, meaning many sidewalks still won’t be fixed; Athens is broke and doesn’t have money for subsidies; we still end up with the patchwork sidewalks.
- The City creates a sidewalk program funded by a $10 monthly fee on your utility bill, or whatever amount which would allow the City to repair every sidewalk in the city every 25 years (approx. the life cycle of concrete). Possibly the fee would be higher for commercial properties. This money would pay for the building and repairing of every sidewalk in Athens. It could include a traffic-calming budget for streets without sidewalks (Far East Side, I’m looking at you). It could also pay for a person to manage this program full time.
- Pros: Many sidewalks built by professionals! No patchwork! Easy for citizens, easier for the City. Predictable outcomes. Predictable payments. New sidewalks could even happen!
- Cons: This is a new idea, untested in an Ohio statutory city; also, that one person who just replaced their sidewalk this year would still have to pay into the new fee, which admittedly is sucky for them, but sometimes life is like that.
- The City passes a sidewalk levy.
- Pros: See the pros from #5.
- Cons: Doesn’t allow us to adjust for inflation or to adjust the fees for different property uses; it’s a property tax levy, which means higher property taxes, again; not sure if it can be used for related services like traffic calming.
Which scenario would you choose? Are we the kind of people who want to punish our neighbors? Do we risk exacerbating the current financial problems our city has? Do we keep relying on a broken system?
Or are we ready to actually live up to our ideals and try something new?
It’s up to you, Athens.
Stephanie Hunter
Strong Towns Athens Leadership Group
Athens, Ohio