By Kaitlin Kolarik (Rome News-Tribune)The city will begin replacing sidewalks on South Broad Street, but retaining walls like these illuminate a growing problem: the sidewalk is the only thing holding up some retaining walls.
But many of the picturesque retaining walls are expected to crumble when the city starts replacing the sidewalks.
“It’s like a sweater,” Rome Public Works Director Jamie McCord said. “Pull on a string, and the whole thing could unravel.”
The 2006 special purpose, local option sales tax package contains $2 million for South Broad pedestrian improvements between Myrtle Hill Cemetery and Cedar Avenue.
City officials had initially proposed replacing the walls as part of the project, but the SPLOST Citizens Advisory Committee balked at using tax money to improve private property.
The Rome City Commission awarded a contract last week for repaving, curbs and gutters, sidewalks, landscaping and lighting. Now, with work slated to start in July, professional staffers are warning their predictions haven’t changed.
“In a lot of places, the sidewalk may be holding the wall up,” City Manager John Bennett said, “even in places where the walls look good.”
Commissioners Buzz Wachsteter and Bill Collins examined the issue last week as members of the city’s public works committee. They directed crews removing the sidewalks to stabilize the front yards with dirt, if necessary, then notify the property owners to make repairs.
The final solution, however, may not be that simple.
Some of the deterioration is decades-old, Bennett said, “and if a property owner was interested in doing something, he would have already done it.” Some of the landlords don’t even live in Rome, he said; others like their walls the way they are — and the city does not have easement rights to enter the yards.
“This is an unusual situation,” Bennett said. “Whenever we’ve done road projects, we’ve always dealt with the walls as part of the project.”
Chief building official Howard Gibson agreed to send violation notices to the worst offenders, advising them to fix their walls or the city would do it and lien the house to recover the cost.
But Gibson also said there is a need to create a policy addressing the situation, which exists in older neighborhoods around the city. He pointed out that side-street walls connected to those on South Broad also will be affected by the project.
Wachsteter and Collins said a new policy will likely include a path to gain control of neglected properties, noting that the streetscape project is aimed at beautification to encourage private investment.
For now, though, “I think preserving the integrity of what is there for the safety of pedestrians is going to be the limit of our focus,” Public Services Director Kirk Milam said.
Curb and gutter was installed on Vineland Drive, along property belonging to Commissioner Collins and other homeowners, several years ago at the request of the landowners, according to Rome Public Service Director Kirk Milam. The work was done as an "assessment job," which means each homeowner paid for his or her share of the work. Milam said the curb and gutter assessment program, open to all property owners, has been in effect within the city limits for 20 years although there have been no requests in the past two years. Applications can be by petition -- in the case of jobs involving a whole neighborhood or street -- or through a phone call from several property owners who want to tie into existing curb and gutter and are willing to pay the expense and donate the easement.
In a way it does and in a way it doesn't. It doesn't, for obvious reasons; it does, in that (according to the official account) prospective investors were given first refusal with the property, who would have developed its commercial and/or Darlington-related possibilities. Both parties passed, so by the law of tranching, that left Mercy and their dubious vision. The free market decreed that "highest and best use" for the land was senior housing. By contrast, letting your property fall apart -- e.g., retaining walls -- cannot be classified as "use." Neglect is the opposite of use.
No, I'm saying they should create the easement by condemnation and then enter it. I don't care how they go about it. If slumlords are the only thing standing between the city and the revitalization of South Rome, I say remove them from the picture. This farcical dance between indifferent South Rome property owners and local government has gone on long enough. There is something called "highest and best use" of real estate; letting retaining walls collapse into the street is the opposite of that.
I am pleased to see the city addressing the retaining wall issue, and for the RNT to cover all the angles (no pun intended). Unlike FormerRoman, who doesn't even LIVE in Rome anymore, I do live in the affected neighborhood, and I think repairing these walls would go a long way to restoring my faith in the local government after the Etowah Terrace fiasco. How to deal with the property owners who are technically responsible for these walls is a legitimate question. The majority are slumlords, for whom such expenditure would bite into their balance sheet; others are simply homeowners who can't afford the repairs. The city should address each on a case by case basis, and if new "policies" for seizing control of these neglected properties does become necessary, then so be it. (Naturally there will be those Romans -- and you know who you are -- who will respond to the suggestion with the usual whining about government takeovers. But I don't care.)