Sidewalk Repair Bills : L.A. to Look at Root Cause of Complaints

A small but feisty group of Canoga Park homeowners who have been waging a yearlong fight to keep the city from collecting up to $2,200 from each of them for sidewalk repairs caused the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday to rethink a 75-year-old city policy.

The city’s policy of assessing property owners for repairs to sidewalks in front of their homes came under scrutiny as several Lena Avenue homeowners protested that it is unfair to require them to pay for damage caused by roots from mulberry trees planted with city approval on city-controlled land.

Several council members agreed.

“These people are victims,” said northeast San Fernando Valley Councilman Howard Finn.

The council asked its Public Works Committee to make a recommendation on the Lena Avenue homeowners’ requests to be relieved of the financial burden for the sidewalk repairs.

‘No Idea’ How to Pay

Meanwhile, one homeowner, Esther Capolupo, a divorced mother who is protesting a $2,200 bill from the city, the highest received in the neighborhood, said after Wednesday’s council meeting: “I have no idea how I could ever pay this.”

A sympathetic Councilman Ernani Bernardi said during council debate that he used to advise his mid-Valley constituents to kill trees that threaten to damage sidewalks in front of their homes.

“I’m not anti-environmental,” Bernardi later told a reporter. “Some of these are beautiful trees, but they’re creating a considerable amount of expense to people.”

Under a 1911 state law, the city has held property owners financially responsible for repairing sidewalks in front of their homes. Property owners can hire a private contractor to fix sidewalks or can leave the work for city crews and be billed for it.

In 1973, the city started repairing sidewalks free but stopped doing so in 1976 because of the expense. The city then made no sidewalk repairs until 1981, when it decided to require repairs only in those areas, including Lena Avenue, named in “trip and fall” lawsuits against the city, said Ed Longley, director of the city’s street maintenance bureau.

However, the council, in the face of rising payments for injuries caused by cracked sidewalks, recently decided to reinstitute--citywide--the policy of assessing property owners for sidewalk repairs, Longley said.

During Wednesday’s debate, Bernardi said the city should pay for sidewalk repairs. West Valley Councilman Hal Bernson, however, questioned where the city could find the estimated $130 million needed each year for the repairs.

“As sympathetic as I am with the people who have the problem, I don’t know where the city is going to find the funds to pay for this,” Bernson said.

Longley said each homeowner has five years to pay a repair bill before a lien is placed on the property. In hardship cases, he said, homeowners can petition the city Board of Public Works for permission to allow the city to collect the bill from proceeds of the property’s eventual sale.