Should you pay a fine for not shoveling your sidewalk? KC area advocates want change
Driving on a busy four-lane intersection in Overland Park a couple of weeks ago, Rebecca Crowder noticed a woman wrapped up in a wool poncho and scarf, pushing a walker through inches of snow and slush on the sidewalk.
It wasn’t the first time Crowder had stopped her car to make sure an elderly or disabled resident walking on icy, snow-covered sidewalks could make it to the bus stop or home safely. Last winter, she remembers seeing a man using a wheelchair, trying to navigate down 95th Street without a clear path.
“That upset me a lot,” said Crowder, an Overland Park resident. “I was like, I have to do something about this. It just upsets me. I’m frustrated that we don’t do better.”
Crowder is now pushing the city to adopt an ordinance requiring residents to shovel snow from sidewalks adjacent to their property — or else they could pay a fine. She will present her request to the Public Works Committee on Wednesday. The committee could then make a recommendation to the City Council.
Whether homeowners are required to remove snow from sidewalks depends on where they live.
Some cities in the area, such as Lenexa and Lee’s Summit, have no such ordinance. Overland Park does, but the law is vague, stating homeowners are “encouraged to remove snow, ice and debris” from property adjacent to the public right-of-way.
Crowder thinks the ordinance needs to have more teeth. She is urging the city to require property owners to shovel sidewalks within 24 or 48 hours of a snowfall or risk a citation and fine.
She is modeling the proposed ordinance after the one in Kansas City, which requires property owners to shovel sidewalks within a reasonable time period after snowfall. If a complaint is filed with the city, the property owner could be fined $25 to $100.
Other cities have similar laws. In Lawrence, property owners could receive a $20 fine each day that sidewalks are not shoveled, plus be required to pay court costs if found guilty of the violation. In Johnson County, Shawnee residents could be fined up to $500 for refusing to clear sidewalks, although spokeswoman Julie Breithaupt said violations are rare.
“The goal is to encourage everyone to be good neighbors and do their part,” Kansas City spokesman Chris Hernandez said. “In residential areas, clear sidewalks are important so that people don’t have to walk in the street after a snowstorm, and so that children can get to bus stops to go to school.”
But some in Kansas City say the city’s law is hardly ever enforced. According to the city’s reports of 311 call center requests, the most complaints were made during the harsh winter of 2014.
“Back during those long winters, the city started educating people and put out information about the ordinance. But I haven’t seen much of that since then,” said Eric Rogers, executive director of BikeWalkKC. “I think having the policy is a first step. But then like any policy, you need to enforce it and educate people about it. If you’re only fined every 10 years, that’s not much of an incentive.”
Other cities across the Midwest have adopted stricter snow removal policies to ramp up enforcement. Last year, after doling out hundreds of citations, Des Moines implemented heftier fines for homeowners who don’t clear sidewalks.
“Every city has a different approach on how to encourage residents to maintain sidewalks,” said City Councilman Jim Kite, who is a member of the Public Works Committee. “It’s always a balance of encouraging folks to do the right thing, but at the same time you don’t want to create too much of an infrastructure that folks can’t adhere to or manage.”
Rogers believes having clear sidewalks year-round would encourage more people to walk or bike to work, which he hopes would reduce traffic and improve the environment.
He would like to see more education about Kansas City’s ordinance.
“It’s especially challenging for people who don’t have the option of driving in the winter, such as the elderly, people with disabilities and kids walking to school,” he said. “And it’s a really big challenge for visually impaired people because they could run into ice or a snow bank and not know because that path is usually clear. It can be completely debilitating.”
Some fear a similar ordinance in Overland Park could place more of a burden on residents who cannot physically shovel sidewalks or afford to pay someone else to do it. Rogers said programs where volunteers help shovel driveways and sidewalks, such as in Shawnee, Mission and Olathe, could become increasingly important.
Whether city officials in Overland Park will give Crowder the cold shoulder when she presents her request for a stricter ordinance remains to be seen. But for now, she’s encouraging more residents and organizations to join her cause.
Kite said it would probably take at least one month before the City Council considers a new ordinance.
“We are going to take an earnest look at it,” Kite said. “If we can learn something from other cities and fit it into the program, we certainly will.”
