Missoula Considers Reducing Sidewalk Project Costs for Homeowners

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - Just imagine; you receive a letter from the City of Missoula stating that sidewalks are going to be built by or around your property.

Ordinarily, that would be good news, except that the USUAL cost to you, the property owner would have been $6,000 you didn’t necessarily have in your budget.

I spoke with Ross Mollenhauer, The City of Missoula Engineering Manager about this issue of adding sidewalks to existing properties.

“Historically, going back to, I don't know, the beginning of Missoula, property owners have paid for their sidewalks when the city comes in and does these surface transportation improvement projects,” began Mollenhauer. “Over time, the city has taken a little bit more of a burden on those, and we pay for a portion of that, but we were still assessing property owners a portion of those costs.”

Mollenhauer said sidewalks are, in his words, ‘a conundrum’.

“Sidewalks are kind of an interesting conundrum, in that they don't always benefit a single property, but they do benefit the neighborhood,” he said. “It’s hard. I think it's something that people wrestle with all over the country trying to figure out how to fund sidewalks. Because everybody wants them, but nobody wants to pay for them.”

He said Mayor Andrea Davis approached Public Works about the issue of who pays for sidewalks.

“The mayor asked us to bring to council our concerns about the cost burden, and we recognize that it is a high-cost burden on property owners, but we also recognize that it's something that the neighborhood wants,” he said. “How do we as a city pay for this? It's not like the city has a magical pot of money that they can just throw at these, right? Everything is paid for by taxes, so it's either you use the entire city to pay for these projects, or you assess some of those costs to the property owner.”

One item on the City Council agenda would lower the threshold for these assessment deferrals from $6,000 to only $3,500. In addition, Mollenhauer said there is a move to allow those with somewhat higher incomes to qualify for help from the City.

“What we were trying to change was the eligibility for the deferral program,” he said. “In the past, it was just for less than 80 percent of the (AMI), Area Median Income to low-income property owners, and we wanted to change that to also include moderate income. So we were changing the eligibility requirements and also changing the amount that you could defer. So now you're able to defer more of those high costs.”

Mollenhauer also said homeowners have the option to defer paying for their sidewalks until their home sells and pay the city at that time.

I don’t know about you, but this looks like a small ray of hope for residents of the City of Missoula.