A few weeks
back, I wrote about how walkability for all of us, but especially for seniors
who may be less secure on their feet, relies on all homeowners maintaining their own lengths
of sidewalk.
A regular
reader responded to me, agreeing with the post, but noting that she’s delaying
needed repairs to her section of sidewalk because of the City of Petaluma
fees. In her words, “I suspect that Petaluma
sees the permitting process as a means of replenishing city coffers with
minimum effort on their part …”
I’m
sympathetic to her concern and wouldn’t be surprised to find that the average
City cost to oversee a sidewalk repair project is less than the scheduled
fee. However, I think there is something
more fundamental at work than maximizing revenue. And it’s something that we should understand
if we wish our communities to function better.
As I noted
in the earlier post, the ability of a resident to accomplish an errand on foot depends
not just on a well-repaired sidewalk in front of his home, but also
well-repaired sidewalks in front of every home between his home and his
destination. Given that need, the
resident has an economic incentive for his neighbors to maintain their
sidewalks.
To me, that
incentive is intuitive. As a result, if
a neighbor knocked on my front door, asking for a contribution toward his city
fees for a sidewalk repair, I’d be tempted to participate. (Assuming, of course, that I could establish
that the request wasn’t an innovative scam.)
But it’s
neither reasonable nor effective for every homeowner to wander his neighborhood
with donation can in hand every time a sidewalk repair is needed.
So what
developed instead was the communal sharing of sidewalk repair fees through the
mechanism that best met the need, local taxes.
For many years, some small portion of our local taxes went to toward
paying a portion of the city costs for sidewalk repairs. When we paid our taxes, we were reducing the fees
to our neighbors and thereby helping them make the repairs needed to sustain
our own walkability.
I doubt the
many folks ever specifically argued for reduced sidewalk fees as a way to
maintain community walkability. Instead,
it was a right-thinking cultural intuition that became embedded in city fee
schedules. It was a fair and reasonable
system.
But, as
happens too often to fair and reasonable systems, it didn’t survive. When Howard Jarvis made his wrong-headed decision in the late 1970s
that taxes were high, not because of a flawed land-use paradigm, but because
government was inefficient, an unintended, but nonetheless clear, part of the
message sent to city halls was the public no longer wished to contribute toward
the sidewalk fees for their neighbors.
The city
halls heard the message. In the scramble
to find ways to balance the books in the decades since the passage of Proposition
13 and its offspring in other states, fees for approvals such as sidewalk
repair have crept upward to include the full charge for all city costs
associated with the repairs. And, in
many cases, have likely exceeded the true costs as city officials found
squinty-eyed ways to look at the data in their desperate search for loose
nickels.
It’s an
unfortunate state of affairs.
However,
there is a solution. Moving toward a
more urban land-use pattern offers a three-pronged solution. First, greater density means that the same
infrastructure, such as sidewalks, serves more people, allowing the repair costs
to be spread more widely.
Second, if
households are able to reduce their costs for automobile, which can be a
surprisingly large chunk of a household budget, more funds are available to
assist with neighborhood needs such as sidewalk repairs.
Third, the
increased mingling in the public realm builds good feelings for other community
members, increasing the willingness to share expenses.
All that
remains to be done is to commit to a transition to a more urbanist world. And then get started on sidewalk maintenance.
Next time, I’ll
offer a few final pre-election thoughts on Petaluma’s Measure Q before the
polls open. I expect that the thoughts
will have applicability to tax measures on many local ballots.
As always,
your questions or comments will be appreciated.
Please comment below or email me.
And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)
You are correct that economic incentives and land use are important. Unfortunately, today many economic incentives encourage sprawl which is bad for the environment (and bad for our budgets because sprawl requires so much more infrastructure per person than is required for more compact communities).
ReplyDeleteFortunately, some communities are harmonizing economic incentives with public policy objectives for job creation, affordable housing and walkable communities. Achieving the right balance between user fees and access fees (or value capture) can go a long way in this regard.
For more info, see "Funding Infrastructure for Growth, Sustainability and Equity" at http://media.wix.com/ugd/ddda66_d46304b5437c178e2f092319a6f30364.pdf