New rules for Washington sidewalk repairs

WASHINGTON — Elected officials approved new wording last week for rules governing sidewalk upkeep in Washington.

City Engineering Tech and Safety Director Keith Henkel said the criteria needed to be objective going into the next round of quadrant inspections this fall, an annual affair n which the city identifies damaged walkways, assesses the cost for repairs, and splits the cost of fixes with homeowners.

“It’s a good program that we need to move forward with, but I want a program that council feels they can stand behind,” Henkel said. “(We need) a set of rules that we can go out and enforce and intelligently discuss with people, about why something is or isn’t a trip hazard … we need a defined set of guidelines.”

The changes have far-reaching effects. Henkel said the city had sent around 375 letters to residents of the second quadrant after inspections last year. Zone three, the city’s southeast quadrant, is up next, covering most of the area south of Main Street and east of Iowa Avenue.

The first revision redefines “broken slabs,” which require replacement. Previously, the city required work for any slab broken into two or more pieces. Now, the term is defined as a slab in two pieces with 3/4 of an inch of separation, or any slabs broken into at least three pieces regardless of their separation.

The changes also offer more flexibility for homeowners who take work into their own hands. Previously, the city required sidewalk tiles to be replaced, rather than repaired, to fix “vertical separation” issues. Under the new rules, homeowners are allowed to use “mud-jacking” or grinding to take care of tripping hazard tile separations.

When they do so, the city has agreed to reimburse them for 50% of their contractor costs. That was already an informal norm, according to Henkel, but it wasn’t written into standard procedures.

“If a homeowner does not want to do full replacement and compliance can be achieved by mud-jacking, or by grinding, we will allow that,” Henkel said. “We figure out a reduced reimbursement for that because it costs less than a full replacement.”

Municipally hired contractors will still default to tile replacement, rather than repair, according to the revised language.

Other parts of the sidewalk repair initiative are unchanged. When property owners bring in their own contractors, the city will reimburse them at a rate of $4 per square foot of sidewalk being replaced, up to a $500 or $750 cap, depending on the tile’s location. Homeowners who don’t get their own contractor still have to pay for the city’s, at a rate reduced by the same amount they’d be reimbursed for otherwise.

City Attorney Kevin Olson said the annual and proactive program kept the city walkable while protecting it from prosecution in the event of an accident.

“The code of Iowa requires cities to maintain their sidewalks, so when somebody trips and falls on a sidewalk that hasn’t been maintained, the city can be liable for that,” he said at a meeting Aug. 1. “If we follow this program diligently, and somebody trips on a sidewalk that we didn’t know about, we have a defense against liability for that sidewalk.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com