LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Many existing neighborhoods in the city have unpaved alleys. For many homeowners, this can mean potholes, poor drainage and daily frustration.
The Lubbock City Council has given initial approval for a petition program that would allow property owners to start a petition to hire the city to pave unpaved alleys in their neighborhoods.
The procedure would require a street block to gather at least two-thirds of property owners’ signatures, making up at least 51 percent of the total linear footage of the alley to get the petition to the city.
City review and cost determination
Assistant City Manager Erik Rejino said at that point the city has to figure out if it’s able to actually pave the alley, based on things like drainage or utilities, and then figure out the cost.
“So this basically streamlines a process, it still ensures the city of Lubbock still gets built to our standards, it basically takes the burden off of them to oversee the engineering, the construction contracts and what not, and again it is a request we get from time to time, and now we’re just adding another process for that,” Rejino said.
The city will determine what each property owner would have to pay based on costs of the work and split it based on the linear footage of each property along the alley. Then go back to the community one last time before proceeding.
“And give them one more opportunity to say yeah this is something we want to do or this is not something we want to do,” Rejino said.
Dissolving petitions and payment options
Rejino said if it’s not something they want to do, there’s a way to dissolve the petition, which requires less of a threshold to meet.
“So instead of two-thirds of the property owners, you just need one third, or 50 percent of the linear footage of property owners to dissolve the petition, if they don’t hit those thresholds and the project move forward, we do have a 12 month payment option with no interest,” Rejino said.
Lubbock Mayor Mark McBrayer said the decision is in the citizens hands.
“So you do have to have most of the people, a majority of the people really wanting to move forward with it, a small minority could stop it,” McBrayer said.
Before the city moves forward with the design and construction, a minimum of 30 percent of the total estimated project cost must be collected.
Potential impact of petition
McBrayer said the new petition would be good not only for Lubbock homeowners, but the city itself.
“Our alleys are messes here in the city, they are the most unattractive part of our city and I think it improves a value of a home, so they would, have some advantage to them of having a paved alley,” McBrayer said.
The ordinance passed its first reading unanimously and will be visited again by city council.
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