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Sidewalks: "ultimately the Town's liability" - Council gets ready to possibly adopt a bylaw to charge homeowners for snow removal

January 23, 2006

Halton Hills - The Civic Centre: New Georgetown resident Mr. Fabio Carmosini moved into the new subdivision at Mountainview and Tenth Side Road back in August. He discovered during this winters first snow fall that The Town of Halton Hills has no bylaws forcing community members to shovel their sidewalks.

Mr. Carmosini delegated the issue before council on January 9, 2006, and talked about the various municipalities which he believed has snow shoveling bylaws citing; Toronto, Brampton and Mississauga. Mr. Carmosini said; “it just makes sense to have the bylaw which would make walking safer and easier for kids going to school, seniors, joggers and people walking their dog so they wouldn’t have to walk on the road”. Mr. Carmosini added, “I got to say; there are some irresponsible neighbours, lots of people don’t like shoveling their walks and driveways. The same people shovel their front door and to their car, so to me it just reeks of laziness”. Mr. Carmosini went on to add; “we’re talking about 30 – 50 foot lots, but the bigger picture is, we all rely on the fact that everyone is going to be a responsible neighbour and probably 95-99% of us are. We have bylaws on cutting your grass, on picking up dog feeces, these laws are designed to help keep everybody happy and make the neighbourhood livable”.

Mr. Carmosini went on to state; “from where I use to live, after a snowfall, let’s say for the sake of argument the neighbour has 48 hours to shovels their sidewalk, if it’s not done and a neighbour complains, the City comes in and shovels the sidewalk and gives the homeowner the bill. And once the person gets the bill once, they won’t let it happen again”.

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Mr. Davis asked the delegation; “if he would like copies of the reports the town had produced over the issue in the past”? The delegate stated that he understood the issue had come up in the past and he would like to review those reports so he could see what was said and do a little research himself.

The Mayor raised the issue of what would happen if seniors who couldn’t do their walkways or were away, or the disabled, what would happen to them? The delegate suggested those people could call the Town and the Town would do their walkways, at the taxpayers expense.

Councillor Somerville raised the issue that it’s tough to enforce a bylaw, because in legal terms it’s the Town’s property. Mr. Tse the Town’s Director of Building, Zoning and Enforcement said; “In terms of utilizing enforcement services to enforce immediate things is not an easy done. We can give warnings, the Town is obligated to give a warning and take people to court. By the time the court date comes around it may be the middle of summer. So it’s much easier and much more effective to if the phone call goes through to the public works and the public works goes and does it, and immediately send a bill to collections and if the bill is not paid, then slap it against the property as taxes”.

Mr Tse confirmed to Councillor Somerville the Municipal Act provides some legal ability for the Town to address the safety issues and provides the foundation for the town to act as he suggested, even though ultimate liability, Mr. Tse acknowledged, is the Town’s onus.

Mr. Henry from The Town’s Public Works department noted, the concern in addressing disjointed sidewalks is staffs’ ability and the logistics involved in transporting equipment to access specific areas for the sole purpose of removing sidewalk snow from the individual homes that are not complying with a bylaw, would be problematic and costly. Mr. Henry suggested, if a bylaw was adopted the department would require additional staff resources to address the issue.

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According to Mr. Henry from the Town’s public works department; it cost the Town approximately $100.00 to clear fifteen meters of sidewalk. Coucillor Fogal raised the issue of, how big of an issue is this? She asked staff and council if anyone had received any complaints regarding snow removal. The Mayor noted he had only received one and Mr. Henry noted his department has received a few, but not a large number of complaints. Councillor Chatten noted he receives more complaints on what the Town does, than what the town doesn’t do, noting how the sidewalk plows have a tendency to damage the edge of lawns, etc.

Council carried a motion for staff to produce a report on the bylaws concerning residential snow removal noting the policies in neighbouring Halton Region’s Municipalities and referred the issue to the Community Municipal Affairs Committee meeting for further debate.

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