Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert.hampton
The proposed fee is very loosely relative to the liability a property owner carries, but doesn't carry any relationship with the cost of replacement or repair .
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The fee is not loosely proportionate to the liability - it is directly proportionate.
It is also directly proportionate to the cost of replacement or repair. Not loosely - directly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert.hampton
Homeowner that don't have any sidewalks (much higher costs to install new rather than repair) pay the same fee as homeowners with well maintained sidewalks.
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In time, even today's currently well-maintained sidewalks will have to be repaired or replaced too. It is true that missing sidewalks come first, so the direct benefit people experience will not come all at once. That was a policy choice - and is true of every government service. This one is actually different, arguably, in that every property that pays will eventually benefit. There are plenty of things I pay for that I will never use at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert.hampton
And developers in opportunity zones, for a completely inexplicable reason, get a discount on their contribution to the fee structure.
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This is inaccurate. Property owners in NEST areas get a discount. That is how the City identifies neighborhoods that have been historically underinvested in. Many different approaches for lessening the burden somewhat in these areas were considered - this was the one chosen. (And NEST areas are not the same as opportunity zones.)
The ordinance makes no changes to developer's obligations to improve sidewalks. Developers have to do everything they have to do today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert.hampton
And apartment owners as a whole are practically completely off the hook despite the fact they have a much more proportionate impact on sidewalk use (10,0000 people in an apartment building obviously use sidewalks more than 1 person in a SFH).
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This is a good point - and was heavily discussed in crafting the measure. In the end, doing it by property ownership/frontage was selected because the amount of concrete is what drives cost, and the sidewalk needs of large lot single family homes are greater. The goal was to create a sustainable long-term program for first constructing, and then maintaining, sidewalks citywide.
Unlike roads, sidewalk usage doesn't really drive sidewalk deterioration. A sidewalk with 1,000 pedestrians doesn't really wear faster than one with 10 pedestrians on it.
You could argue that more efficient users of infrastructure - dense apartment dwellers - shouldn't be "punished" (a word you are fond of using) relative to the less efficient, and more costly, users of the same type of infrastructure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert.hampton
homeowners on residential arterials pay the same fee as Mixed use streets which is 40% more (3.58 per linear foot) than residents on residential collectors. However, Denver's Complete Street Guidelines show the width of residential collectors as the exact same as residential arterials. So why are they feed at such a higher rate?
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This is not exactly correct - you have to look at which streets are categorized in which way. Which was done - poring over DOTI GIS maps categorizing streets, because the street classifications do not perfectly align with the street classifications in the planning documents. And some very large streets are inexplicably categorized as collectors; and some other streets that are not what any of us would think of as arterials are categorized that way for traffic purposes. The categories you flag are the ones that mismatch the most - but that's not a product of the proposal - it's a product of the City's classifications, and the proposal attempts to correct for ground truth as much as possible. The fees by category are intended to align with intended sidewalk width - plain and simple.
Is it possible there are some streets where a resident is charged as if there's a 10' sidewalk and it'll only ever be a 6'? Yes, quite possibly. But that is a very small number and is not intentional. It's inherent in any citywide program. Most importantly,
it can be fixed.
It is an ordinance, not the — constitution. Do I expect a clean-up ordinance in a few years? I hope so. The City doesn't actually do that as often as it should, with nearly every other program that has similar mismatches.
But we should work to improve these things. Not find the one or two imperfections, and then as a result, trash the whole endeavor. Which you seem keen to do. If you can do better, offer concrete (pun intended) suggestions. I doubt you will come up with much that was not already discussed robustly in crafting this proposal. But would love to hear areas for improvement. Trying to categorize 18,187,845 linear feet of sidewalk (which the City's data does not track by width) into a fee structure that can be administered, understood, and is somewhat equitable, is not easy.
It would be great if the City's leaders had actually taken it upon themselves to have the hard conversations, and perhaps they could have crafted a more equitable approach; although I think this is probably not wildly different from where they'd come out. It's much easier to poke holes than to create. But to say something can't be done - assuming a person thinks the thing should be done - just because it is difficult... that I'll never personally accept.
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