Sidewalks remain a slippery slope

The long-lasting hot potato that is the city’s sidewalk ordinance has once again been tossed back to the Eureka Springs Planning Commission.

At a joint workshop between members of the commission and city council on Tuesday, April 28, various opinions and ideas were tossed about regarding potential changes to the sidewalk ordinance.

Topics included ways to help residents with the costs of repairing and replacing portions of sidewalks, whether concrete from certified companies was required based on how much sidewalk needed repair, or whether someone could mix their own concrete to repair small areas.

In the end, the topic was once again punted back to the planning commission for additions, subtractions and changes to a proposal that will eventually be officially presented to the council.

“As long as we don’t need another workshop, we’ll send this back to the planning commission for a couple of these items, and then they’ll return it back to the council for us to look over,” Eureka Springs Mayor Butch Berry said. “At that point, we can hem and haw and work among ourselves…”

Some in attendance felt it was first important to decide what regulations would be required since the current city ordinance says property owners are responsible for any sidewalk repairs and replacements.

Topics of discussion included the city possibly negotiating with area concrete providers and coming up with a “deal” for the many properties that need assistance with damaged or dilapidated sidewalks.

Getting a legal opinion on whether the city could negotiate possible deals on behalf of citizens was also important, attendees agreed.

“I think we can put this out to bids, to the concrete companies and see if we get any responses,” Berry said.

Paul Sutherland, the city’s building inspector and code enforcement officer, along with city planning director Cassie Dishman surveyed all city sidewalks in recent months and graded each property in need of repair or replacement by level of severity.

Sutherland told the workshop participants that he favors having requirements for the quality of concrete used by property owners. The same standards are used by cities such as Fayetteville, Rogers and Wichita, Kan., Sutherland said.

“Are we going to say, ‘OK, well, we’re going to rewrite [the ordinance] so we can have the regulation for somebody that wants to put a bucketful of premix in there, and then another regulation if they want to fill up a wheelbarrow, and another regulation if they want to have a contractor come out with a separate truck? Because I mean this gives us a standard,” planning commission member Michael Welch said. “We could have variant requests for that, but you’re going to set up a standard for everybody…”

Sutherland later added: “Probably the reason why I’m pretty adamant about that is because you’re going to find that someone’s going to come up and say this 4-foot by 4-foot is a repair, and then that 8-foot by 4-foot is a repair. Where do you draw that line of the repair? And then who’s going to make that deciding factor.”

Regardless, a small mixer should be sufficient for small jobs, commissioner Susan Harman said.

“I’m just saying that the small mixers should be sufficient for a smaller repair,” she said. “If it’s 60 foot, then yeah, it makes sense to go ahead and get a truck to bring in that much. That’s a large section of sidewalk, but not for the smaller ones.”

Smaller jobs could be easily handled by property owners, some in attendance agreed.

“So, keep in mind, what Cassie and I did whenever we went to walk on all these sidewalks, we did not go out and want someone to replace every bit of their sidewalk,” Sutherland said. “We hit the bad spots on those sidewalks. We didn’t go and say, ‘you know, this doesn’t meet ADA,’ because we weren’t trying to get ADA compliance, we were trying to maybe get ADA-accessible.

“So, whenever we go and say, for instance, you have a 24 by 4 foot or 20 foot by 4 foot sidewalk and you’re under a yard there you’re going to be saying that you can replace all that out of a truck and then you’re not going to get the quality of concrete that you will out of the truck.”

Harman replied: “OK, so what if we said anything under 50 feet of concrete, of sidewalk, that needs to be replaced can be replaced by a cement truck or a portable mixer?”

“That’s up to you guys,” Sutherland responded.

Berry closed the workshop by saying that any property owners who have suggestions or questions regarding the issue should contact planning commission chair Ferguson Stewart or Dishman at city hall.

“The planning commission can try to incorporate those ideas into the new ordinance,” Berry said.