Pittsfield Reluctant to Accept Streets From Controversial Subdivision
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Kara and Giovina streets are still not accepted as the city continues to be adverse to doing so over concerns about the sidewalks' ADA compliance.
As of Tuesday, city officials are still contending that he hasn't done his part. But a failure in communication in 2015 has given the city little recourse while the residents are petitioning the City Council to accept the roads.
"The folks on these streets are in an odd predicament. They want the streets accepted but there are some things that haven't been done for it be an accepted street," Councilor at Large Kathleen Amuso, who lives in the development, said.
Kroboth had purchased the land off Williams Street with the intent of creating Kara and Giovina streets and Karen Drive. After delays, he took on the work in 2012 looking to complete it. The city required a $175,000 performance bond to ensure he finished the work.
In 2014, the developer's attorney, Thomas Hamel, petitioned the Community Development Board to release the bond and said that the work would be done that summer.
However, city officials said the roads were not up to par and taking them on would cost the city some $200,000. The former city engineer Matthew Billeter had repeatedly urged the city to continue to withhold the bond until the roads met the city's standards.
"The city tried to push back a little bit more to try to get this work done," Ward 4 City Councilor Christopher Connell, who has been involved in the project the entire time.
"There were some sidewalk concerns, there were some encroachment concerns onto private property that had to be resolved. But the biggest concern was the lack of ADA accessibility."
Particularly, the sidewalks are too steep for handicapped accessibility. In 2015, Hamel sent a correspondence to the city asking for the bond to be lifted but the city's Department of Public Works failed to address the correspondence within a 45-day period, which by law it had too. Hamel argued that the time lapsed and therefore the city had to release it.
In October 2015, the Community Development Board begrudgingly did so.
"They really had no leverage and as a result, they voted to release the bond," Connell said.
Later that October, the City Council approved providing snow removal for the roads, under the impression that the developer would no longer provide that service.
Last Tuesday, the residents petitioned the council to accept the streets and provide all of the services as other roads. Resident Alfonso Scalise said "the sidewalks we have right now are acceptable as far as residents" and nearly every resident on the street signed the petition.
"As far as I am concerned, he doesn't have a Yola Esther development anymore," Scalise said.
However, the battle over the development still wages outside of those streets, and even outside of the city's borders. In March 2016, the Commission on Disabilities filed a complaint with the Architectural Access Board because the sidewalks are not Americans with Disabilities Act compliant.
On Aug. 8 of that year, the Architectural Access Board attached a fine to the development of $50 a day. Connell said that has grown and this July there is a hearing regarding the outstanding debt.
"We are kind of in the waiting period right now, not knowing the outcome of the hearing with the developer in July," Connell said.
The City Council referred the resident's request to the mayor and city solicitor to wait to find out what will happen this summer.
But for the residents, many who bought homes years ago under the impression they'd be receiving city services, they've waited enough. If the city does accept them, the city would be liable to fix the handicapped accessibility issues.
"They were always under the assumption that once all of the lots were done and built up, the road would be completed and the roads would be accepted," Connell said.
Tags: housing development, unaccepted roads,
