Cortez council requires five-foot sidewalks on new construction
A land use code update ends an exemption that let builders match older, narrower sidewalks and drops a rule that carports match the house.
New construction and infill projects in Cortez will have to put in sidewalks at least 5 feet wide, even where the existing sidewalk next door is narrower, under land use code changes the City Council approved at its September 8 meeting, KSJD reported.
The code already set 5 feet as the standard width, and 9 feet in the Central Business District. But it had allowed new work to match an existing sidewalk instead, and many of the city’s older sidewalks are about 3 feet wide. The council removed that exemption. Five feet is the minimum width recommended for accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to KSJD.
City officials acknowledged the change will bring the city’s sidewalks up to that width only gradually, as properties are built or redeveloped.
The same package removed a design standard that required carports to be built of materials matching the house, and added rules on fire-resistant fencing in wildland-urban interface areas and limits on nonfunctional turf. The vote was 7-0.