Courtesy photo
The topic comes up periodically during City Council and advisory panel meetings, and in most cases, the owner of the property where the sidewalk is situated.
“Like many cities, the city has adopted a sidewalk ordinance regarding maintenance and repair to clarify the property owner’s responsibility for falls on sidewalks,” City Attorney Heather McLaughlin said. “The thought behind this ordinance is that the property owner is more likely to notice defects than the city.”
The Benicia Municipal Code Chapter 12.48 addresses the question, she said.
“The property owner required by BMC 12.48.010 to maintain and repair the sidewalk area shall owe a duty to members of the public to keep and maintain the sidewalk area in a safe and nondangerous condition,” the code reads.
The property owner’s responsibility isn’t limited just to maintenance and repairs, the code explains. If someone gets hurt on an unmaintained sidewalk, the injured person could sue the property owner, according to the code.
“If, as a result of the failure of any property owner to maintain the sidewalk area in a nondangerous condition as required by BMC 12.48.010, any person suffers injury or damage to person or property, the property owner shall be liable to such person for the resulting damages or injury,” it says.
The code specifies one exception involving certain trees: “The property owner shall not be liable for damages resulting from trees that are owned and maintained by the city or designated by council resolution.”
One Benicia Herald reader recently sent photographs of a damaged sidewalk in the 800 block of Oxford Way. He said the deterioration has been going on for two to three years.
It is not on his property, but in the past few years, he twice has has painted the damaged area white, to make the damage more visible, particularly at night.
He frequently takes walks in his neighborhood, and said the Oxford Way sidewalk is just one of many spots where the sidewalks have become damaged.
“In the case of Oxford Way, I don’t think there are any street trees that would make it the city’s responsibility for the sidewalk,” McLaughlin said. “This means it would be the property owner who would be liable for a trip and fall on the sidewalk by their property.”
Benicia’s municipal government doesn’t leave a property owner holding the bag alone, McLaughlin said.
“The city does have a joint sidewalk repair program that applies throughout the city,” she said. “Basically, the city pays for the removal of the damaged sidewalk, and the property owner pays for the installation of the replacement sidewalk.”
Property owners who want to know whether their sidewalks would meet the qualification for the joint program may call Ed Greco, engineering technician in the engineering division of the Benicia Public Works Department, to see if their sidewalk qualify or the joint program. The department’s number is 707-746-4240.
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So the property owner must maintain the sidewalk, but when they do so, they are required to obtain an encroachment permit for around $150 and pay a bond. In the case of the encroachment permit, a city employee explained to me that even though the city was requiring the repairs, the homeowner must buy the permit because they are doing work on city property. Way to have your cake an eat it too, City of Benicia. It’s city property when they can make money through fees but the homeowners property if money has to be paid out in damages.
Absurd.
I concur. What surprises me even more is that there are many areas where there simply is no sidewalk or it suddenly ends part way through a block. Not much fun when you’re pushing a stroller and I can’t even imagine if one is in a wheelchair.