We have all seen the situation pictured above in Columbia. The Columbia Association clears the sidewalks that are not behind residences, businesses or areas for which homeowner associations are responsible. The problem is that most of these people don't clear their sidewalks because they are not in front of their homes and they don't use these sidewalks. No matter how much they are encouraged to clear the sidewalks there are no consequences to their ignoring the issue.
If we really wanted to address this issue it could be addressed. My suggestion is that the Columbia Association note who doesn't clear their sidewalks and notify the homeowners and businesses that sidewalks not cleared will be charged on their next CA assessment. That might motivate some of them. I know that this would require some bookkeeping and there is probably a liability issue that has to be addressed but somehow this doesn't seem like an insurmountable issue either.
Besides the inconvenience issue, the safety issue of people having to walk in the street should be enough to have this issue addressed in some way.
#hocoblogs
I'm all for this. Yesterday was a great example. It was a nice day and I took my kids (3 yr old and 6 month old) out for a walk with the stroller around our neighborhood. Unfortunately, there were plenty of areas that I had to push the stroller out into the street because someone was too lazy to shovel the sidewalk in front of their house. It's totally frustrating that these snow removal rules are in place, but no one enforces them. If the county starts hitting them in the wallet, I'm sure that will change real fast.
ReplyDelete-Brent
We do need to address this problem. And we need to consider that some of the folks who fail to clear their sidewalks are elderly or disabled folks without the wherewithal, or snowbirds out of town for the winter. Any solution needs to recognize that there are myriad of causes, not simply that they are scofflaws.
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