Laserfiche WebLink
1% Driveway Policy Statement 2 <br />January 26, 2001 <br />the top of the driveway. In some areas of the City no driveways were constructed. <br />Instead, the developers built rolled curbs, also with 6-8" height differential to the <br />street grade. Because of the large ground clearance of the cars manufactured <br />during that period, the aforementioned practices did not present a problem and <br />worked very well. <br />As time progressed, the condition of these streets deteriorated. Some of them <br />were rehabilitated by overlaying them with asphalt. While the practice extended <br />the useful life of the street and reduced the height differential between the top of <br />driveways and street/gutter grade, thus benefiting the subsequently manufactured <br />cars with much less ground clearance, it created drainage problems in areas of the <br />City. Because San Leandro relies primarily on the street surface for drainage, <br />changing the official street grade on a particular street section created drainage <br />problems in most street sections within the particular drainage grid. <br />For the past three years, the City has been fortunate to receive federal and State <br />grants of over 5 million dollars, which has allowed us to start reconstructing street <br />sections that are severely damaged beyond the ability of any other rehabilitation <br />method to effect any repair. Implementing these reconstruction projects present <br />the City the opportunity to not only construct a "new" street section, but also <br />affords it the benefit of restoring these streets to the official street grade and thus <br />start the process of reducing the drainage problems around the City. The <br />shortcoming to this reconstruction is that it reinstates the relatively large high <br />differential between the top of the very old driveways and the street, which can <br />make it difficult for the prevailing low -base car to negotiate. In cases where these <br />old driveways had been replaced by City standard driveways, this difficulty does <br />not exist. <br />Over the past few years, the City street reconstruction program has covered large <br />sections of the City. Much of the work has taken place on streets with old <br />driveways or rolled curbs. Property owners on these streets have been given the <br />opportunity to retain their existing driveway or rolled curb with the attendant <br />driving difficulty or replace the old one with the current City standard driveway at <br />the property owner's expense. <br />While some property owners have chosen to have the City replace their driveway <br />through the Sidewalk Program, quite a few did not, citing the significant cost of <br />driveway replacement as their reason. Many property owners feel that the City <br />should pay for their driveway replacement. Staff had declined to pay for this cost <br />in view of the current City policy and state law that makes it the property owner's <br />responsibility. <br />DISCUSSION <br />The entire City Council on December 18, 2000 referred this issue to the Adhoc <br />Committee for resolution. As a result of the Adhoc Committee's work, a policy <br />ISIV4 <br />