$1M Schenectady sidewalk plan riles some

Pilot program would cover 4 miles of streets out of 280 in city

Schenectady The $1 million in the recently adopted 2019 municipal budget to fund a plan that calls for creation of a special assessment district to ease homeowners’ costs of fixing sidewalks in front of their residences is rubbing some city leaders the wrong way.

“To me, there just was not enough information to plunk down a million dollars and say, ‘Here, go play with it,’” Councilwoman Leesa Perazzo said Monday.

She reiterated the litany of issues she has with the proposal, including the percentage of people on a street who would have to sign the petition for the program to go forward, how much time they have to pay the city back and the $1 million in the budget covering only 4 miles of streets in a city with 280 miles of streets.

She also expressed concern about the program’s impact on the city’s finances, specifically the bonding cap.

“I wish we could come up with something that would be effective, fair and equitable, and also be cost-effective for the city,” Perazzo said.

Majority Leader John Polimeni, who is promoting the proposal, acknowledged Monday that the details of what would be a pilot program still need to be worked out, but he said it beats not doing anything in a city with sidewalks that are generally in poor condition.

“It’s not an increase in taxes, let me make that perfectly clear. It’s something that the residents are requesting,” said Polimeni, likening it to a layaway program. “Whatever the bond is on that amount, that’s incorporated into the fees, and it’s still cheaper that what you would get if you contracted privately because the city has purchasing.”

In the case of concrete for the new sidewalks, it would be cheaper to the homeowner because the city is buying it in bulk.

Roughly 80 percent of Schenectady’s roadways have sidewalks, said Peter Knutsen of the city’s engineering department.

He said city code stipulates that the homeowner is responsible for maintaining or caring for the sidewalk in front of their property and that a person can be cited by the code enforcement office if the condition and accessibility of the sidewalk is not in line with the Federal Highway Administration’s guidelines under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

If the homeowner doesn’t fix the problem in a timely manner, the city has the option of doing it and then billing them “essentially as a tax lien” for the work, said Knutson, noting that the idea of special assessment districts is not a new one. He said Schenectady’s infrastructure was built with the city incurring the cost of a project and passing it onto homeowners.

On Monday, Councilman Vince Riggi recalled that before Gary Mccarthy became mayor, the policy was for the city to repair sidewalks and curbs when it repaved the streets.

He said his interpretation of the language in the city code on sidewalks is that it they are “city right of way.”

At Friday’s budget vote, Councilwoman Marion Porterfield said, “There’s no implementation plan, yet we’re putting $1 million toward a project that doesn’t have a plan.”

She and Perazzo have said they support making sidewalk improvements, but think the proposal Polimeni is pushing lacks details to help them determine if it’s viable.

Council President Ed Kosiur in his remarks at Friday’s budget adoption vote said he hoped to make the sidewalk program a priority next year and that it made sense to have the “seed money” in the spending plan.

Polimeni said the city has already received petitions from homeowners along a section of Raymond Street on the city’s north side and Mcclellan Street around Schenectady High School where he used to live.

The Goose Hill resident said this plan offers a solution to people with sidewalks in bad condition who have been cited and need to get the problem fixed or face costly consequences.

“They want to be able to let their kids’ play, they want to be able to walk safely, and we have to do something, and there’s been no program brought forward until this one,” said Polimeni. “This is a sustainable plan to fix sidewalks in the city.”