Hudson's Sidewalk Improvement District legislation was meant to improve the condition of the sidewalks throughout the city. An annual fee charged to all property owners, including the owners of properties otherwise tax exempt, would be amassed in a fund to be used for sidewalk repair and replacement. It has been predicted that the annual fee for most homeowners will be $100. The fee will not be levied or collected until 2026.
At the Public Works Board meeting last Thursday, Ryan Loucks, the engineer from Crawford & Associates who is consulting on the project, reported his calculation that the sidewalk assessments would yield $307,000 a year. How much sidewalk can be replaced with that amount has not yet been calculated.
Loucks is also working with Laberge, the City's grant consultants, on a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) application for $1 million to be used for sidewalk improvement. On Tuesday, July 15, two days before the Public Works Board meeting, the Common Council tabled a resolution authorizing the mayor to submit a CDBG application because they didn't know what the City was applying for. Apparently, $1 million for the sidewalks is what the City will be applying for. It seems a little surprising that no one on the Council seemed to know that.
The next step for the Public Works Board is creating and prioritizing a list of properties with sidewalks that need replacement. Each of the five board members (Gary Purnhagen, Justin Weaver, David Marston, George Kroenert, and Tyler Kritzman) will take a ward for evaluation. The plan is to publish the findings for review by the community. The initial focus, however, will be on the sidewalks that connect key areas of service:
- Warren Street from Third Street to Seventh Street
- Seventh Street from Union Street to Washington Street
- North Fifth Street from Warren Street to Prospect Street
- North Sixth Street from Warren Street to Prospect Street
- South Third Street from Union Street to Warren Street
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It is curious why the City of Hudson does not currently have, or chooses not fill, its "Commissioner or Grants" role.
ReplyDeleteSee current City Charter C27-1
File with the need for some sort of City Charter refresh.
An efficient city of Hudson's size would likely have fewer Commissioners and more part-time roles that are pre-funded.
Imagine we would have that instead of a Housing Justice Coordinator. Just imagine it!
DeleteThat seems unfair to Tullo. Think of all the hard work and sacrifice she’s had to put in to secure housing for herself.
DeleteLooks like a 4.7 million shortfall right there. I always said the easiest, most efficient and least costly way to fix the sidewalks was to enforce the law which required property owners to maintain their sidewalks.
ReplyDeleteOne would think. Enforcement is seen by some as “punching down.” We’re all in this together, comrade.
DeleteI agree with SlowArt. Why didn't the City just enforce the law that was already on the books? Why not tie sidewalks to building permits (ie, you can't close your permit before DPW signs off on your sidewalk)? It's going to cost the taxpayers a lot more to have the City coordinate the great sidewalk fix than it would to just make people fix their own sidewalks.
DeleteAgain, as with the 2nd Street bumpouts, lack of management will always tell. In this case it’s Tom DePietro’s inability being highlighted, not our absentee mayor’s. Tom’s incompetence seems to know no bounds. He should hang his head in public — or move to Columbia, MO where he has already bought a house. I vote for him to move.
ReplyDeleteAs part of Luizzi's CHIPs repaving project this year, they billed DPW $6,445 for each of the 27 curb ramp corners they installed. While that money is reimbursed to DPW, it gives an idea of how expensive sidewalks can be.
ReplyDeleteSidewalk Socialism, where instead of enforcing sidewalk code, like most competent municipalities do, responsible property owners are forced to pay for derelict properties. And now, since responsibility has been officially taken over by the city, the sidewalks will only get worse since there is no motivation for owners to fix it on their own.
ReplyDeleteAnd let’s do some math. They already borrowed around $300K from the reserve fund (which is supposed to be paid back) to start the project so the DOJ doesn’t come after us. They’ve mostly spent that already and have more than a year before the sidewalk tax will get collected, which surprise, it won’t be near enough. So let’s say they borrow another $300K to front until next year… so $600K in the hole, and an estimated $5.5 million for the first batch of sidewalks to be repaired, we’re looking at around $6.1 million needed. If we are only collecting $300K at the current estimated rate, then we will fall short and have to raise the sidewalk tax by 20x to get up to the amount needed to cover these expenses without getting a bond or pulling from the general fund (property taxes). So it seems the sidewalk tax should be around $2,000 a year for every property owner, if we should cover what’s needed for the DOJ and then every year after since there’s the whole rest of the city to cover—including places that don’t even have sidewalks. If they are paying, it’s only fair they get them too.
So this will be another financial time bomb planted by the current regime, but will be blamed on the next. And because of the DOJ settlement, we can’t easily back out of this and go back to the old way of (lack thereof) enforcement.