Builders soon may be allowed more opportunities to avoid constructing sidewalks next to new homes, following a proposal from the Planning and Development Department to avoid “sidewalks to nowhere.”
Department officials say the changes will expedite construction permits to build housing more quickly, while neighborhood advocates argue the city should be building more sidewalks, not fewer.
Houston is one of many cities in Texas that requires homeowners to maintain sidewalks adjacent to their properties, which residents have said can be cost-prohibitive and results in deferred repairs.
The latest discussions about the city’s handling of sidewalks began in September when a trio of City Council members proposed getting rid of a fee that developers or homeowners can pay in lieu of building a sidewalk in front of a new home.
The fee goes into a dedicated account for sidewalks, but has not yet funded any projects because of the way the money is to be shared across neighborhoods, officials said.
District J Councilmember Edward Pollard said in September that the $12-per-square-foot fee was too steep and unfair to builders. Planning Department representatives said at a public sidewalk meeting the fee actually does not cover Houston’s costs because of how expensive it is for the city to bid, assign and do the work.
Instead of revoking the fee completely, Mayor John Whitmire advised council to wait until the planning department released its plan to amend the ordinance.
The department pitched its changes to the Planning Commission Oct. 17 and hosted eight community meetings to get feedback. The changes include simplified language to provide clearer direction on when sidewalks are not necessary, potentially eliminating the “sidewalks to nowhere” problem councilmembers had raised.
The amendment says new homes, not part of a subdivision construction, will not have to include a sidewalk if it would not connect to an existing pathway, is deed-restricted or would not be feasible because of an open ditch without space to work around it.
Even when a sidewalk feasibly can be built, developers still can opt to pay a fee instead of building the walkway under the proposal.
The city is not “anti-sidewalk,” Planning Director Vonn Tran said, but the department is tasked with finding efficient ways to process building permits.
“While we’re angry that, oh my, we’re allowing them not to build the sidewalk,” Tran said at an Oct. 28 meeting, “on the flip side, whether it’s a builder or an individual who hired a builder to build the home for them, they’re just as angry because they’re paying into a fee-in-lieu fund, but they’re not getting the benefit of having a sidewalk in front of their home.”
Sidewalks “in crisis”
Sandra Flowers, a Pinecrest resident who attended one of the public meetings, said she did not understand why the city required her to include a sidewalk in front of her house 15 years ago when it did not connect to anything.
Flowers successfully appealed to the city to avoid that construction. Now, she is against the city’s push to expand the number of exemptions that would allow homeowners and developers to avoid having to build sidewalks in front of new homes.
“It (sidewalk maintenance) was the city’s responsibility, but we were being told it was our responsibility for the sidewalk,” Flowers said. “That’s one reason why the sidewalks never got done. We can’t pay for a sidewalk.”
The city’s current sidewalk network is “in crisis,” Peter Eccles, director of policy and planning with transportation advocacy group LINK Houston, said.
Eccles attended the planning department meetings and initially was excited to hear the proposals, but became disappointed when he thought the city was “missing the mark.”
“The city’s sidewalk network is totally inadequate right now, so for the city to be choosing to focus on how we can build less sidewalks by expanding the criteria for making new construction exempt, that really seems like a misguided priority at this moment,” he said.
Eccles said LINK Houston believes the proposed exemptions were too broad. He wants the city to utilize its Resilient Sidewalks toolkit from April 2023 meant to help developers plan sidewalks when blocked by features, such as ditches or light poles.
He also is concerned about the construction exemption for deed restrictions. Some neighborhoods may not see a need for sidewalks, but for others it could be about not wanting outsiders in their area, he said.
“Deed restrictions have a very, very problematic history, and in those same documents are racial covenants or other covenants about religion, things that were really effective tools for a very long time and a troubling part of our history to prevent the integration of neighborhoods,” Eccles said.
Funding woes
Homeowners being responsible for sidewalk maintenance is not uncommon in Texas, Eccles said, but Houston historically underfunds the walkways.
The Public Works Department handles sidewalk repairs or construction when residents successfully apply for one of the city sponsored programs, which pull funding from various sources.
Tran, who Mayor John Whitmire appointed as planning director in July, said the city would need more funding than the sidewalk fees provide to fill the gaps.
The fund currently has about $1.2 million split between 17 city zones. When a developer pays the fee in lieu of building a sidewalk, 70 percent of the funds have to stay within that area to provide the neighborhood with a usable sidewalk, Tran said.
The problem: the money is stretched too thin across zones to accomplish the city’s goal. Tran estimated that $1 million in city money would pay for 1.6 miles of sidewalk, and said the low amount currently in the sidewalk fund shows how few developers avoided construction.
“We can come up with plans, but all of the plans in the world will not get us sidewalks without funding,” Tran said.
Some neighborhoods have active tax increment reinvestment zones that can budget for sidewalk projects. District councilmembers also can use their individual discretionary funds for projects.
Vonn said she liked a funding idea posed by an event attendee to have private companies sponsor the sidewalks in certain areas.
Eccles recommended the city consider a bond issue, as the city of Austin did in 2016 to fund sidewalk construction.
“This is an issue that’s going to take the full force of city government and all of the departments working together,” Eccles said. “…It makes sense to be doing all these things at once comprehensively, rather than really just tasking one department with a relatively narrow task.”
The Planning Department will present the final version of the amendments to the Planning Commission and hold a public hearing Nov. 14, followed by a presentation to a City Council committee Dec. 2.
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