Label
Councilman Sarantou
Sidewalk Program 2025
Agenda Review
2/4/2025
Title
From: Councilman Sarantou Response Requested: 2/10/25
Is there going to be a sidewalk replacement program this year? If not, Why not?
If yes, please describe the scope of the program for 2025.
Body
Referral Response:
In 2022, the City of Toledo's sidewalk program operated on a complaint-driven basis, repairing individual panels based on complaints rather than overall need. Additionally, the funding source relied on individual decisions about whether panels were damaged by a tree in the public right-of-way (a repair funded through CIP) or not (cost assessed to the property owner) which created inconsistency in how the policy was applied. The program's funding was always limited by CIP resources.
The administration proposed a new approach, which would have funded all sidewalk repairs through CIP, but this was not approved by Council. Instead, we worked with Council Members and introduced a new plan that assessed all sidewalk repairs to the property owner, as sidewalks are the responsibility of property owners. This shift allowed the city to begin addressing the backlog of deferred maintenance, move away from a complaint-based system, apply a consistent funding policy, and start repairing whole blocks at a time.
As part of this program, we extended the assessment repayment period from five to ten years, and introduced the Sidewalk Rescue Grant for qualifying property owners. In 2023, the new sidewalk program repaired 186,000 square feet of sidewalk-nearly four times the amount completed in 2022. However, concerns arose from Council Members regarding the removal of trees during sidewalk reconstruction and we were again asked to reevaluate the program.
We began researching alternative sidewalk repair methods that would minimize tree removal. Due to limited CIP resources, we decided to pause the sidewalk program in 2024 and focus on sidewalk repairs and new sidewalk installat...
Click here for full text