HomeMy WebLinkAboutCD-32-94 THE CORPORATION OF THE MUNICIPALITY OF CLARINGTON
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REPORT
Meeting: General Purpose and Administration Committee File # - iP(,
Date: Monday, July 18, 1994 Res. #_Ca P _ ° '(, +
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Report#: CD-32-94 File #: By-Law#
Subject: SNOW REMOVAL FROM MUNICIPAL SIDEWALKS
Rec'ft"iVI'Mspectfully recommended that the General Purpose and
Administration Committee recommend to Council the following:
1. THAT Report CD-32-94 be received;
2 . THAT the interested parties be advised of Council 's
decision; and
3 . THAT the remaining outstanding bills for snow clearing
services be processed for payment.
BACKGROUND:
In 1993, the Municipality passed By-law 93-144, a By-law to
regulate the removal of snow and ice from roofs and sidewalks
within the municipality. The By-law required all owners and/or
occupants of property within the Municipality to clear the snow and
ice from the sidewalks abutting their property within twelve hours
of a snowfall and;
"ensure that the portion of sidewalk for which they are
responsible is continually kept and maintained free of
slippery surfaces, snow, slush, ice or any combination thereof
by appropriate means between falls of snow, rain or hail, no
matter what the cause. " (section 3)
The By-law also provided for an expedited means of dealing with the
removal of snow and ice from municipal sidewalks . It was not
necessary for staff to issue repeated warnings to property owners
or occupants . If staff found the work had not been done they could
have a contractor do the work and bill the owner.
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REPORT CD-32-94 - 2 - JULY 18, 1994
The Municipality retained G.W.S. Landscaping to provide snow
removal services where required. As a general guideline, if no
work was done within twenty-four hours of a snowfall or if a
hazardous situation arose and no action was taken by the owner to
correct it within twenty-four hours, the contractor would be sent
out to do the work and the owner would be billed. Notices were
placed in all local newspapers advising citizens of their
responsibility. These ads ran four times over the course of the
winter. As well, there were notices on the local cable television
channels .
From January 13, 1994 until March 1, 1994 the contractor was sent
out on sixteen separate occasions to clear a total of 273
properties . The total cost to the Municipality, for this work, was
$11,530 .45 . The contractor had to clear sidewalks not only after
snowfalls but also after roads had been ploughed and some of the
snow had been pushed up onto the sidewalk and not subsequently
cleared off by the abutting property owner.
Shortly after the first invoices were sent out staff and members of
Council began to receive complaints about the billing. By February
4, 126 invoices had been sent out. Of these, staff have received
complaints on 21 of them. Some complaints state the work was never
done, others that they had cleared the snow and the Municipality's
snow plough had come along and shoved more snow up onto the
sidewalk after they had finished. Staff were instructed to
withhold sending out further invoices . It was necessary however,
to continue clearing the sidewalks in the interest of public
safety.
1992-93 was the first year that staff actively attempted to enforce
the snow clearing by-law. By-law 87-197 was very unwieldy and time
consuming. The new By-law is a great improvement, however, it
still places an unreasonable strain on the By-law Division's
resources . The time cost to the Municipality of the present system
is enormous . The By-law Division must first receive the
complaints, prepare lists, obtain addresses and ownership
information and notify the contractor. Once the work has been done
invoices must be prepared and the exact amount to be billed to the
owner must be calculated along with the amount to be paid to the
contractor. The invoices must be tracked and if no payment is made
then Treasury must be advised to add the outstanding bills to the
municipal taxes, and track the payments .
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REPORT CD-32-94 - 3 - JULY 18, 1994
1993-94 was the first winter for the new by-law and staff must now
reassess its effectiveness . The total number of complaints
received were up over 1992-93 . There were fewer repeat complaints
on the same incident. This can be attributed to both the faster
turn around time in dispatching the contractor and the greater
exposure received by both advertisements and prompt billing. The
areas of public complaint can be best categorized as the following:
1. the sidewalk was never ploughed by the contractor, the
owner states he did it before the contractor arrived; it
should be noted that there can be delays of up to forty-
eight hours between the time of the cessation of a
snowfall, the filing of a complaint and the arrival of
the contractor to do the work;
2 . several complainants have stated they saw a small plough
in their area but it never did their sidewalk, in many
cases they have confused the contractor hired to do the
Public Works Seniors ' Program with the one clearing
sidewalks at the request of the By-law Division;
3 . the sidewalk had been cleared by the owner however the
snow plough had come by clearing -the road and dumped more
snow onto the sidewalk; in some cases the homeowners have
stated that they did not feel this was their problem as
they had cleared the snow in the first place and didn't
have to remove anything that the plough placed there.
It should be noted that these are the same areas that were
complained about under the old by-law as well.
ENFORCEMENT OPTIONS:
Staff have explored several options in an attempt to improve the
system. These are summarized below along with the major drawbacks
to each option. The options are:
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REPORT CD-32-94 - 4 - JULY 18, 1994
1 . continue on as we are;
this solution only perpetuates the problems as they now
exist; the process was streamlined this year in order to
operate more effectively but now several complaints have
been received about not being warned of our intention to
plough beforehand: there is a continuing problem of time
required to administer the system as well as public
complaints about bills;
2 . repeal the By-law and do nothing and hope people clear
the snow;
3 . leave the By-law in place and rely on the public to clear
the snow.
Both options 2 and 3 leave the Municipality very vulnerable on
the subject of liability on the Town's insurance. The
Municipality can be sued in cases of "gross negligence"
regardless of any By-law which places responsibility on the
adjacent homeowner. The ultimate fact is that the
Municipality is the owner of the sidewalk and can be held
accountable for problems resulting from dangerous conditions .
If our liability increases then, in all likelihood so will our
insurance premiums.
4 . have Public Works or a private contractor do the work for
all areas;
The main problems for Public Works are manpower, the cost of
the program and establishing a firm policy of how often it
must be done aside from snowfall. In the case of a private
contractor, they would have to be given complete jurisdiction
over the program.
5 . have Public Works or a private contractor do the job only
in specified areas;
6 . have Public Works or a private contractor do the job for
all areas for snow falls only and leave the property
owner responsible for clearing in all other situations.
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REPORT CD-32-94 - 5 - JULY 18, 1994
Options 5 and 6 combine the worst of the other options with
few, if any advantages . The Municipality still has the cost
and accepts liability for unploughed areas . Option 6 leaves
us with the same situation as presently exists . Staff would
have to persuade the citizens to clear their own walks and
more importantly keep them clear at all times .
Options 4, 5 and 6 create another problem, that of collecting
the costs of work done by either a private contractor or the
Public Works Department. The offending property owners can be
billed individually. This invites continued complaints from
individual owners . There are other options for collecting
outstanding costs .
(a) The costs could be applied only to those property owners
with municipal sidewalks adjacent to their property.
Unfortunately there is no available list of all the
sidewalks in the Municipality and some citizens would
rather shovel their sidewalks than see a surcharge on
their taxes for sidewalk maintenance.
(b) The costs could be applied to the taxes of the residents
of the urban areas only. In staff's opinion this option
still imposes an unfair burden on citizens without
sidewalks and those who do not object to shovelling the
sidewalk.
(c) The additional costs can be applied to the taxes of all
residents. In this case residents in rural areas as well
as those without sidewalks are asked to pay for the
maintenance of something that has no direct bearing on
them.
The last collection alternative would be for the Municipality to
accept the costs as part of their operating budget and not pass the
cost on to the property owners . In staff's opinion this is not a
viable alternative. The cost for the contractor to perform his
work this year was in excess of $11,450 .00 . The Municipality
cannot be expected to absorb that kind of cost on a regular basis .
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REPORT CD-32-94 - 6 - JULY 18, 1994
Staff believe the only option with any real expectation of success
would be to continue to enforce the By-law but with minor
procedural changes . The contractor would be required to issue
notices after any work is done and take photos of the sites before
and after. Unfortunately this will increase the cost to the
citizens and slow down the contractor. This process would allow us
to have hard evidence of the state of the sidewalk at the time the
contractor attended and it will also remove the Municipality from
direct involvement in arguments as to what work was done and when.
The owner would be immediately notified when the work was done thus
eliminating the argument that nothing was ever done.
Staff have spoken to the Public Works Department regarding
complaints involving snow ploughs . There are no reasonable
alternative solutions to the problem of the ploughs dumping snow
back onto the boulevard and sidewalk. In some situations the
boulevard is not wide enough to contain all the snow and it spills
onto the sidewalk. In several of the urban and commercial areas
the boulevard is virtually non-existent.
OUTSTANDING INVOICES:
There are approximately 150 outstanding invoices which were never
sent out to the property owners . Staff are recommending that these
be processed and sent to the property owners for payment. These
invoices represent over $5,454 .00 . After it had been decided not
to process any more invoices it was still necessary to have the
contractor attend and clear the sidewalks on some properties.
Concern has been raised over the delay in sending out these
invoices, however, it should be noted that many of the invoices
from 1993 were not sent out until the late spring and early summer
of last year.
Of the twenty-one complaints received, the contractor can account
for all but four of them. These were done by another employee of
the contractor and he cannot personally verify that the work was
done. Staff are intending to cancel only these invoices . The
remaining ones would have to be paid. Staff do not believe it
would be proper to cancel the remaining outstanding invoices as
this would have the effect of penalizing those citizens who acted
in good faith and paid their bills .
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REPORT CD-32-94 - 7 - JULY 18, 1994
CONCLUSION:
For many years there was little or nothing done to enforce the
provisions of the previous Snow Removal By-law. Increased concern
over public safety and the Municipality's liability have resulted
in a need for more active enforcement of the By-law. Staff believe
that the existing system can be made to work effectively with only
minor modifications .
Respectfully submitted: Reviewed by:
/% I `Z' _
/- Pa ti L. rrie A.M.C.T. W.H. Stockwell
Town Clerk Chief Administrative
Officer
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