By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
Low bids from DHC (Dustin Hynes Construction) of Hays were approved by the Hays city commission Thursday night for new sidewalks at Rolling Hills Park – $26,841.90 – and at 13th and Canterbury – $35,135.53.
Both projects will offer safer options for walkers, Jeff Boyle, director of parks, told commissioners.
“At 13th and Canterbury, generally speaking, all of these areas that are basically just grass and dirt right now are going to be connecting to existing sidewalks at the Hays Recreation Commission (HRC) and Hays High School,” said Boyle.
One section of the sidewalk on the north end of HRC will be eight foot wide instead of the standard five foot width in anticipation of a proposed multi-use path to be built in east Hays. “We’re just trying to plan ahead,” he explained.
“That concept will actually be brought back to the commission later this year during the 2020 budget process,” interjected City Manager Toby Dougherty.
The southwest corner of 13th and Canterbury is a vacant lot which is for sale.
Hays Mayor Henry Schwaller, who abstained from the vote, said he is one of 11 owners of the property.
“Some people think as mayor, I’m getting a free sidewalk. I didn’t ask for the sidewalk. I didn’t know about the sidewalk,” said Schwaller. “In fact, I kinda don’t want the sidewalk.”
Vice-Mayor Shaun Musil pointed out that current city policy requires developers to put in sidewalks.
“This is a situation where we are addressing past oversights,” Dougherty said.
“The current development policy says that if you build a property out, you put a sidewalk in. For example, if you’re in a residential area you have three years from 50% build-out to put the sidewalk in to eliminate the connectivity issues.”
“This was a remnant of the policy that said if it’s not built-out, you don’t put a sidewalk in, and we’re not going to take into consideration what gets built-out past that,” explained Dougherty.
“So what happened here is we had a somewhat undeveloped intersection – there’s actually still two corners of this intersection that are still undeveloped – and we built a high school on one quadrant and Hays Rec Commission on the other quadrant.
“The mindset back then was we’ll just put the sidewalk in whenever we deal with it. It’s led to some of the areas we’ve been addressing over the last few years in the sidewalk program. We’re trying to infill areas that were developed.”
He cited as an example another area in east Hays where a sidewalk was installed last year between Indian Trail and Donald.
“You had a sidewalk going through a commercial corridor, and then nothing, because it was undeveloped, and then residential housing that goes a quarter mile to the east to a park without thought of how you’re going to get there. There was, and is, a well-worn path in all these areas where people are actually (walking). That’s how we identified all these areas. We looked where the paths were in the dirt.”
Rolling Hills Park, bordered by 41st Street to the north and Autumn Lane to the east, has no connecting sidewalks for pedestrian traffic.
“We want to go from the existing curb cut sidewalk area all the way down 41st. It’ll actually drop off down into the park area and go all the way to Autumn Lane where it will turn south,” explained Boyle. “That’ll provide full connectivity for everybody in the neighborhood to get up to the walking path on 41st. We’ve seen a lot of folks trying to walk on 41st Street and it’s just not safe.”
Commissioner Sandy Jacobs agreed.
“I’m really happy that we’re doing this. It is a dangerous area and there are a lot of people up there walking.”