I respectfully request the city council to examine some of our policies as they relate to sidewalk construction and sidewalk infill.

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1 C. Brandon Chapman 1110 SE Sunnymead Way Pullman, WA March 14, 2017 Mayor and City Council City of Pullman 325 SE Paradise Street Pullman, WA Dear Mayor/Council: In the last few months, as I have tried to increase my understanding of certain municipal issues and best practices, it has inherently come with a recognition of areas where we have an opportunity for improvement. It started with some innocuous questions I had about sidewalks: what is the process of putting in sidewalks? Moreover, why do we have several pockets of the city where no sidewalks exist? Many of these missing sidewalks, of course, are in older neighborhoods. However, a closer look finds several newer neighborhoods where this is also a problem. This issue wreaks havoc on walkability. I respectfully request the city council to examine some of our policies as they relate to sidewalk construction and sidewalk infill. When sidewalks are built Currently, developers are not required to put in sidewalks up front. They merely post security. Developers have said putting in sidewalks up front adds to their cost. Of course it does. There is a chance some of the sidewalks have to be altered or redone depending on house setback, etc. The City of Moscow is requiring this happen, however. In their city, they also have an Itani Drive and a Panorama Drive. As you can see (Exhibit A), Itani Drive has sidewalks already in place, on the entirety of the street, including lots that have not been sold. It is evident by the four houses in the middle of the underdeveloped portion that sidewalks were taken out during construction and then put back in when the driveways were put in. Two of them are temporarily with gravel, but that s because construction isn t complete. Yet, by putting in the sidewalks in advance, individuals who are living on Itani Drive or Nadi Court can all walk all the way to Rolling Hills Drive, which is to the west of this street. As you can see (Exhibit B), Panorama Drive also has vacant lots, but sidewalks are completed. We do not do this, however. The three-year rule The city council adopted our current design standards on Dec. 4, 2012 (Ordinance No ). These standards state: To ensure the construction of these sidewalks in new subdivisions, the developer shall provide the City, prior to City acceptance of the subdivision plat, performance warranty in the form of a bond, a two-party certificate of deposit, a letter of credit, or case for an amount equal to 100% of the estimate cost to construct all sidewalks in the subdivision. Basically, developers post security for the finished sidewalk construction, but don't actually build it up front. However, the design standards then state: At the three year anniversary of the City acceptance of the subdivision plat, all sidewalks not yet constructed shall, at that time, be constructed by the subdivision developer. Provided, however that any sidewalks which, at that time, are scheduled to be constructed as a condition of a

2 building permit shall be exempt from this requirement. Failure of the developer to construct required sidewalks shall be cause for the City to construct said sidewalks and recover the costs incurred from the related performance warranty. This just isn t happening! We have several neighborhoods in Pullman that are past those three years, but have gaps in the sidewalks. I have inquired about this and have been told that we don t often foreclose on the security after three years, instead electing to hang onto the security as long as progress is being made. That s not only contrary to the design standards that city council has approved, it has set an expected precedent. For example, both Crithfield Court and SW Barnes Street look like a patchwork quilt (Exhibit C). My understanding is that this three-year rule was put in place in the late 1990s. The houses on this street are newer than that time, yet certainly, after about years, I wouldn t deem this to be great progress being made. To bring it much closer to today, I picked one single subdivision off Terre View to show this. In Exhibit D, you can see sidewalk gaps on Prairie View Drive, Valley View Drive, Palouse View Drive, and High Point Court. Photos are included in Exhibit E, which include, in one instance, an older gentleman walking in the road. Certainly, with growth, there are empty lots which eventually get sold. Some of the lots in this area have been sold in the last few years. However, some of these homes were built anywhere from 5-8 years ago. That s quite a bit longer than three years. That s quite a deviation from what the city council approved as our design standard. Conclusion I see putting in sidewalks up front as the cost of doing business. I believe that if we mandated that developers do it, they will. They obviously are in Moscow! There was probably a time when we needed to bend over backward to get developers to do anything. We re not in that time anymore. We re in a pro-growth phase. I feel we have the negotiating power and we re not using it. Developers, wanting to make money, will agree to do this up front if it made the difference between being able to develop or not being able to. They won t decline to capitalize on a cash cow due simply to sidewalks. They won t step over dollar bills to pick up dimes! At some point, somebody incurs the cost of the sidewalks. By choosing that to be builders over the developers, the residents suffer. However, if we were to still allow them to follow the adopted design standard, as the city council previously deemed acceptable, we need to at the very least enforce those standards. We recently had a city council meeting in which a developer was asking to not do part of the original agreement. Regardless of the opinions expressed on that issue thus far, the point one of you council members made was that we shouldn t be dealing with these types of issues five years later! This is something that should have come up way before at least by year three when our standards say. We re allowing developers off the hook for things. Why? What are we afraid of? We certainly have a lot of new developments in our city (Wheatland, Sunnyside No. 10, Sundance South, Summit No. 3, Paradise No. 8, Barclay No. 3, Whipering Hills West 2.0 Phase 2). None of them comes with a new park or green space. Traffic calming measures have been abysmal. As it stands, the developers really haven t had to worry about any kind of value-add to the new subdivisions. It seems like completed sidewalks is the least we could do to at least say that the city represents the residents and not the developers. Sincerely, C. Brandon Chapman

3 Exhibit A

4 Exhibit B

5 Exhibit D

6 Exhibit D

7 Valley View Drive Exhibit E

8 Prairie View Drive

9 Palouse View Drive

10 High Point Court Marshland Drive

11 Marshland Drive (cont.)