Winter Walking and Cycling

[danbrotherston]

You're right, she did ask for it...but there's no binding requirement.

I suspect the reason for the bylaw being phrased the way it is, is so that it is unambiguous.  If snow continues, the property owner can claim the sidewalk was cleared, and that only new snow has fallen since.  How can the city prove the property owner guilty?

We can brainstorm ideas, but I think the very requirement for brainstorming shows why enforcement is going to be completely broken here.

For complaints I have always filed complaints about every single property I have to walk over that has uncleared sidewalks.  

I will continue to do so this winter, but I will address all of my complaints to those councilors who voted against this.

More or less, in Kitchener, you get to talk to a real person, but the contact centre seems intentionally difficult about receiving complaints: they want an exact address, no matter where the problem is...

Waterloo on the other hand, has an answering machine, and no indication if anyone ever checks it.  I think I got a real person once the entire winter.

Otherwise, the effect is the same.

This is the case for all complaints - I remember it was difficult to complain about an untended vacant lot near where I used to live.  After a bit of back and forth, we settled on a range of address numbers based on the properties on either side of the lot in question.  End result was good, however, in that the owner cleaned up the lot within a matter of days of the complaint, on more than one occasion.

That's good.  I've not had good experiences that way.  The most notable one is a tree that had been left to overgrow the sidewalk on Victoria St., forcing everyone onto the road.  But it was more or less in between the property lines, I eventually settled on giving them one address.  A week later it was still a problem, so I called, and eventually got transferred to bylaw.  They said the case had been assigned, but the singular property inspector was on vacation for two weeks, with no replacement.  Three weeks later, I called again, property inspector told me she had inspected, and served a warning, and planned to go back.  Two weeks after that, city crews trimmed the tree back.  Basically a month and a half of the sidewalk being blocked.

The next year, when the same tree, overgrew the sidewalk again, I brought my own tools and cut the damn thing back again.