From:Effie
To:City Council
Cc:James Lewis; Jorge Garcia; Benjamin Fine; Matt Downing; [email protected] Subject:City Council Agenda Item #12E (sidewalks) on upcoming city council agenda Date:Thursday, December 1, 2022 8:48:54 PM
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Honorable City Council:
I encourage you to have a fair and firm policy regarding sidewalks and waivers of future rights to protest sidewalk assessment districts.
Some infill properties that have developed in the past triggered a city requirement that sidewalks be brought up to code.
However, in some instances, there was agreement between the applicant and the city to, instead, record a ‘waiver of the right to protest’ the future formation of an assessment district for the construction/installation of sidewalks for that property.
On all projects above a certain level of development, be that a percentage of square footage, or a dollar amount, or other agreed-upon level, waivers should be required when streets and sidewalks are not installed. This information should be recorded against the title of the parcel, as well as accessible in a database format at City Hall, so those interested could easily see how close to ‘50% plus one’ a certain geographic area is to being able to form an assessment district to complete the sidewalk improvements on a street or other assessable improvements in an area.
If the information is not easily accessible, it is useless.
Please advise at the Public Hearing if the city maintains a database of properties that have been required to record this waiver? And if so, is this database available, and easily accessible, by staff and the public?
Thank you
Yours truly,
Effie McDermott
Shell Beach