Committee recommends moratorium on sidewalk citations through Dec. 31, advances ordinance to council

The University Heights Building and Housing Committee voted on Sept. 15 to recommend ordinance 2025-43, a moratorium on most sidewalk-repair and replacement citations through Dec. 31, 2025, and to bring the ordinance to the full council for first reading.

Under the moratorium, cited sidewalk enforcement and replacement actions would be suspended through the end of 2025, with one explicit exclusion: point-of-sale inspection repair directives would remain enforceable. The committee made the recommendation after weeks of resident complaints and discussion about whether the city should create a coordinated repair program and how much the city might share in repair costs.

Brad Bryant, the city's law director, described the ordinance's main provisions in committee discussion: "I left that part vague. So what the ordinance does is it puts in a…