Evanston aldemen Monday are scheduled to vote on a plan to require residents to pay more of the cost of alley paving projects.
For many years the city has offered to split the cost of paving an alley 50-50 with residents who live along the alley.
But the city has only budgeted $250,000 a year for its share of paving costs, and that’s led to a backup of requests for alley paving.
So Public Works Director Dave Stoneback plans to ask aldermen to increase the share of funds required from residents to 75 percent to make the city dollars stretch further.
He’s also proposing a new option in which residents who agreed to pay 100 percent of the paving cost could move to the top of the project wait list.
Residents who want an alley paved have to circulate a petition among neighbors and collect signatures of owners of more than half the property abutting an alley to get approval for a paving project.
The city stopped issuing petitions for alley paving in 2015 because of the project backlog, and Stoneback says the city now has requests from 35 residents requesting petitions.
Stoneback says that for residents who agreed to pay 100 percent of the paving cost the city would waive engineering and legal fees normally added to the special assessment cost.
I’m glad to hear this. In
I’m glad to hear this. In most cases, gravel alleys aren’t really a problem, and paving them exacerbates storm water issues. It’s weird that Evanston paid hundreds of thousands at Lincoln School to create a stormwater detention basin, while meanwhile subsidizing residents to pave over alleys, running that stormwater into drains. Even the small detention basins in the new alleys, which add extraordinarily to the cost, are not keeping runoff from going into the sewer system. Rain water should become groundwater wherever possible. Permeable alleys are a big part of that.