Yamini Misra has not given the stretch of sidewalk in front of her new home a lot of consideration.

It wasn’t expensive enough to be a budget line item when she and her husband built their house, it was just “lumped into everything.” She did not even know she could have paid a fee to the city instead of building the sidewalk, though she said she would not have chosen that option. 

“Who wants more grass?” Misra said, complaining about the weeds on her front lawn. 

Misra’s property just southwest of Texas Southern University has become an example of what some Houston City Council members call a “sidewalk to nowhere” – a 4-foot wide strip of concrete that does not connect to an existing sidewalk at either end. 

Now, a trio of council members wants the city to scrap a requirement that developers or property owners put in sidewalks when building a new house or pay a fee.

The three – District J’s Edward Pollard, District D’s Carolyn Evans-Shabazz and District F Councilmember Tiffani Thomas – argue developers will build sidewalks when they are compatible with a neighborhood without a city mandate. In other words, they say, let the market dictate whether sidewalks are needed.

Disability rights activists and homeowners, however, criticize the measure as limiting the walkability and accessibility of neighborhoods even as Texas Department of Transportation data shows pedestrian deaths remain high in Houston.

At the center of the issue is a 2023 ordinance change to allow developers and homeowners to pay a fee to the city in lieu of building a sidewalk in front of a property when building a new house. The fees go into a fund used to repair sidewalks throughout the city. 

The city’s Department of Planning and Development was unable to provide a list of projects paid for with the fund by time of publication. 

The three council members are pushing to eliminate the sidewalk requirement and the fee option. 

The potential change means that when a developer builds a new house, it would not be required to add a sidewalk even if it would connect to another. Sidewalk requirements for subdivisions would remain unchanged.

“It does not help connectivity,” Pollard said. “It does not create safe pathways, and it leaves an area that does not have any sidewalks with random strips of sidewalk in front of one house. That is not aesthetically pleasing, and not serving any real purpose.”

Pollard estimated around $700,000 has been put into the sidewalk fund, but said he did not know if any projects had benefited from it. He said developers hesitated to pay the fee because it was more than twice the cost of installing a sidewalk. 

“That’s the whole purpose for the fee in lieu of, so that people will utilize it instead of putting in infrastructure that’s unnecessary,” Pollard said. 

According to the city’s Planning Department, the fee in lieu of constructing a sidewalk is $12 per square foot.

Greater Houston Builders Association CEO Aimee Bertrand said the group supports the proposed change.

“We support any measure that helps lower the cost of building and developing single-family homes and communities in Houston,” Bertrand said in a statement. “As home prices continue to rise locally and across the nation, every $1,000 increase in the cost of a new home prices out more than 1,600 Houston families from achieving homeownership.”

Asking developers to pay a higher fee in lieu of building the sidewalks appears more punitive than constructive, Evans-Shabazz said. She and Pollard voted to implement the fee last year as part of a larger ordinance package, though Pollard said he deemed it bad policy at the time. 

Evans-Shabazz said she and her neighbors did not want sidewalks in their neighborhood. Their homes were built in the mid 1900s, and the road is still quiet enough to walk in the street without issue. 

The new homes scattered throughout the block with the strips of sidewalk look “ridiculous,” she said. 

“You can certainly see that no one’s going to walk down the street into somebody’s yard, walk that strip and step back on the street,” Evans-Shabazz said. “And how much safety does that provide them anyway?”

Rachel Cohen-Miller, an attorney with Disability Rights Texas, said she has never heard of a resident who did not want sidewalks. The group, she said, plans to advocate against the proposed change through the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities.

She said the council members pushing for the change likely have good motives, but the city needs to prioritize the creation of safe and accessible walkways for pedestrians, especially older adults, and people who use wheelchairs, walkers or mobility scooters. 

“Just because there’s nothing around it now doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work to make things accessible and inclusive and sustainable,” Cohen-Miller said. 

Houston sidewalk accessibility long has been a bone of contention between residents, developers and City Hall.

City ordinance makes residents responsible for the upkeep of sidewalks in front of their homes, which can be cost prohibitive for many. City programs to help pay for repairs and replacement of damaged sidewalks are limited and have long wait lists. 

Cohen-Miller and Steven Strickland, co-founder of nonprofit Walk and Roll Houston, said they want the city to find a new solution to sidewalk problems as a whole.

The item was tagged last week, pushing off debate until this week. The council could vote on the ordinance change Wednesday, but council members last week thought it would take more time to decide. 

Pollard and Evans-Shabazz said they would be open to keeping the ordinance but lowering the fee, potentially bringing more money into the sidewalk fund.

Council members, activists and residents all agree the city needs even, usable sidewalks, but no one has a plan on how to fix – or pay – for them. The cost will only grow as the city defers roadway maintenance costs, according to a 2023 report on the state of the city’s finances.

As the city faces growing financial questions, like a projected deficit in 2025 of more than $160 million, Pollard said the city may need to prioritize the maintenance of existing sidewalks over building new ones.

Cohen-Miller said the city should be applying for federal grants and repairing sidewalks when doing road work.

“Sidewalks being uneven is a problem,” Cohen-Miller said. “But the answer is not, don’t build sidewalks.”

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