Sidewalk Talking Points

Thousands of miles of sidewalks throughout the City of Los Angeles are broken and pose a serious threat to public safety. Current city policy is reactive, rather than proactive, with repairs ordered too often only after multiple reports of trips, slips and falls in obviously unsafe locations. This leaves citizens citywide at risk, threatens the stability of neighborhoods, and unwisely exposes the city to legal action and spending millions on legal defense and settlement payments that would be better used to fix the problem.

The Realtors “Broken Sidewalks Campaign” aims to identify serious risks citywide, prod elected leaders to elevate this issue to a more urgent status, and support measures that will solve the problem, rather than merely serve as inadequate Band-Aids. With the percentage of broken sidewalks approaching 50 percent, action is needed before it spirals further out of control. This is a “livable neighborhoods” issue that is supported by many Neighborhood Councils citywide. Just like the police urban initiative known as “Broken Windows,” a broken sidewalk often is the first warning sign of a neighborhood in decline. Failing to act undermines property values and threatens the stability of entire neighborhoods.

Realtors are urged to contact homeowners within their farm territories to educate them about this problem and have owners report broken sidewalks to the city (818-374-6857).

Realtors can give all property owners a copy of an informational brochure available on-line at www.srar.com, collect information, take photographs of locations with broken sidewalks that pose serious public safety issues and use on-line resources to aid this campaign.

Use the following talking points when discussing this issue:

By not taking a comprehensive approach, disabled residents remain at risk and the city is exposing itself to possible legal action for failing to comply with requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Rather than being proactive, current city policy has the city waiting for reports of a trip, slip or fall before fixing sidewalks that pose an obvious public safety risk.
Realtors advocate taking a proactive approach to this citywide problem. The intention is to identify and fix dangerous portions of broken sidewalks to eliminate risks to public safety. This approach requires the city to change its criteria for fixing sidewalks and to allocate more resources to its 50/50 program and general sidewalk repair program.
A point-of-sale approach is misguided primarily because it is not a comprehensive method of eliminating threats to public safety. One property owner who sells may be required to fix a moderately damaged sidewalk while risks to public safety on either side with dangerous cracked, uplifted, and broken sidewalks would remain unrepaired. And, point of sale could bog down escrows or perhaps threaten home sales.
A point-of-sale tactic fails especially in a declining market with relatively few transactions.
A point-of-sale ordinance could bog down the escrow process in a sector of the economy that currently is under siege.
In a recent survey of Neighborhood Council participants, sidewalk repair work was among the highest budget priorities cited. Given their choice of where to cut the budget, city residents felt livable communities should be one of the last areas to see a reduction in funding.
To have any chance of solving the problem, the city needs to, at a minimum, double its current budget to an estimated $18 million.
Existing budget funds should be used to fix the most dangerously broken sidewalks with the bulk of any increase in funding directed to the popular 50/50 program, which has the city and homeowners sharing the cost of repairs, fast-tracking work, and offers the promise of getting ahead of problems.
Homeowners risk losing their insurance coverage if a dangerous sidewalk is not fixed.
With the city receive much of its revenue from property tax revenue, livable communities and making homeownership easier is in the city’s interest. Point of sale ordinances makes it more difficult to buy and sell a home.
Realtors will assist Neighborhood Councils in fulfilling their mission of locating sidewalks that pose a public safety hazard.

Facts:

Of the 10,750 miles of sidewalk citywide, 43 percent or 4,600 miles are already broken. Thousands more miles fall into disrepair every year and many more miles may not have been identified by the city, bringing the total closer to 50 percent.
City officials acknowledge that at the current pace, it will take 83 years to repair already broken sidewalks
Responsibility for repairs fall into two categories: property owners generally are responsible for repairing sidewalks. However, if the damage was caused by root growth from a tree planted by the city, then the city is responsible.
There are 680,000 trees boarding sidewalks with 80 percent of the damage to sidewalks caused by parkway tree root growth.
70 percent of broken sidewalks are in front of residences; 30 percent are in front of commercial properties.