Sidewalks, vacant lots and zoning violations were on the agenda for Monday’s City Council meeting.
All of those matters were listed on the agenda as “dicussion only” items, and the council did not act on any of them.
Sidewalks
For years, the city has reimbursed property owners for part of the cost of installing sidewalks. Keith Edwards, community development director, said there haven’t been many Kewanee property owners taking advantage of that offer in recent years.
The city budgets $15,000 a year for the sidewalk reimbursements. Last year only $9,198 was spent; so far this year, the expenditures total $2,434.
Increasing the payments might lead more people to rebuild or install sidewalks, Edwards said.
Now, Kewanee pays $2 per square foot for four-inch-thick sidewalks and $3 for six-inch sidewalks. Edwards said he’d like to see that increased, and council members expressed support for increasing it to $4 and $5.
City Detect
At a meeting earlier this summer the council heard an online presentation from a representative of City Detect, a service which helps cities spot problems that require attention.
The company installs cameras on city vehicles that produce videos of streetscapes, detecting graffiti and other problems.
Edwards said he spoke to an official in a Georgia city that has been using City Direct, who was pretty lukewarm about the value of the service.
Edwards said it might be worth considering purchasing the City Direct service next year.
Waiving liens
When the city condemns a building and has it demolished, ownership of the vacant lot that’s created goes to the city.
The lots are put up for sale, but since they’re usually too small for building a new home, they can go unsold for years.
Also standing in the way of the sale of the properties is the fact that the city mows the grass on the lots several times during the summer, and puts the cost of the mowing as a lien on the property — making the land get steadily more expensive,
Mayor Gary Moore said he would favor forgiving the liens, but only if the purchaser agrees to build on the property.
