Missoula officials debate sidewalk assessments, CIP priorities and hazardous-sidewalk repairs

Missoula City Council members and public works staff on Tuesday reviewed the city—s Community Investment Program priorities and questioned whether to continue using property assessments to fund sidewalks, reduce the maximum homeowner assessment or stop assessments altogether.

City staff framed the discussion as three choices for council: keep the current assessment program (city staff described the current maximum single-family/duplex assessment at $9,000), reduce the maximum assessment (a $3,500 cap was proposed by a councilmember), or eliminate sidewalk assessments and fund projects from other public sources. Staff said those assessment payments average roughly $215,000 a year across projects in recent years and represented about 6% of the recurring transportation funding mix in their five-year outlook; they also estimated the assessment component of running a single sidewalk-assessment project takes roughly 400 staff hours.

The decision matters because sidewalk projects are packaged now as "complete streets" work (curb, drainage, pavement and utilities along with sidewalks). Staff said delaying projects raises construction costs because of inflation and foregone opportunities to combine work with other street and utility improvements. Staff also reported the city—s project list of more than 100 candidate CIP items has a planning-level cost of about $215 million in current-year dollars, and that the highest-ranked projects tend to be the ones that attract federal or grant funding.

How the CIP list is created and why projects place where they do

Transportation planning staff described a…