My doorbell rang this afternoon. It was Kevin, my postman, and he had a certified letter for me.
Certified letters are always bad news and I could see on the envelope that this one was from DOT so I knew it wasn't Publishers Clearinghouse telling me about my windfall.
Kevin said that every house on the block, except one, got certified letters from DOT. WTH, I've got nothing to be afraid of. My sidewalk and curb are in excellent condition. I signed for it and opened it up.
Inside was a Notice of Violation that my sidewalk had been inspected and was found to have a "trip hazard". The notice said that I needed to replace ten square feet of sidewalk. There was a graphic indicating this general section of my sidewalk.
In NYC -- and I presume that this is the case in most large cities -- a homeowner is responsible for the condition of his sidewalk. If the sidewalk falls out of repair it's the homeowner's job to repair it, just as it's his job to keep it clean and clear of snow. But actual enforcement of this has usually been limited to third party complaints and not as a result of proactive, formal inspections.
Last year around this time, a non-DOT crew, which I presumed to be an independent contractor, was tearing up and replacing sidewalks all over the neighborhood. It was the same sort of thing: an anonymous inspector had run around the neighborhood tagging damaged sidewalks for repair.
Certified letters were sent to homeowners with vague indications of the nature of the violation. They were given 45 days to either apply for a permit and get the job done by a licensed contractor or the city would do the job @ $9+ square foot and bill the homeowner.
The thing is, I walked those sidewalks several times a day. While a few of them did have some issues with tree roots, most of the sidewalks that were replaced I remember as being in fine shape. At least, I never saw an issue with them. The entire process struck me at the time as being somewhat arbitrary, which is to say fishy. And now here we are again.
Can anyone spot this "trip hazard"? Bear in mind that my sidewalk is everything below where that stoop starts at the left side of the photo. The questionable piece of sidewalk is on the lower right, immediately adjacent to the white painted curb cut up to the first vertical seam. Here, let's zoom in on that section of sidewalk and see if we can spot that dangerous "trip hazard"...
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