Sidewalk clearing rules approved, city to run public education campaign for first year

Property owners in Regina will be required to clear adjacent sidewalks of snow and ice starting Jan. 1, after council passed new rules aimed at improving accessibility in the winter.

In a 9-2 vote, council approved changes to the city’s Clean Property Bylaw at its Wednesday meeting, with councillors John Findura and Landon Mohl opposed. The revised bylaw will be presented for council approval later this month.

Coun. Bob Hawkins said the changes are about having compassion for those who might find it difficult to get around, from seniors seeking greater mobility outside to those with disabilities to postal workers to visitors to the city to anybody who simply wants to walk.

“That’s what this bylaw is. It’s nothing more complicated than that. It says we as a city, acting in a neighbourly and civic way, will be kind to the users of our sidewalk,” Hawkins said.

“We are a winter city. We aren’t the first city to do something like this.”

The bylaw takes effect on Jan. 1 but Mayor Sandra Masters said there will not be fines issued in the first year. Instead, there will be a public awareness campaign notifying people about their new responsibilities.

“The first year will be about education and they’ll monitor and come back to council a year from now with a report on how that first year went (and) what the compliance was because currently we don’t measure it,” Masters said.

The new rules were passed without any new funding for bylaw enforcement. Administration said once it gets a full understanding of the effects of the changes, it would make a funding request in the 2023 budget.

Coun. Andrew Stevens said he was hoping for new bylaw enforcement officers as theirs is one of the busiest city departments, now being asked to do more work.

In his experience, walking around Regina during the winter has been a treacherous journey.

“We have one of the worst slip-and-fall records in Canada for a reason. I would say to those who think that sidewalk clearance is fine the way it is, it is s–t and I’ll be perfectly blunt,” Stevens said.

“As an able-bodied person, when I walk to city council in the winter, it is awful. I slip, I fall — it is not passable.”

To help those who are unable to clear their sidewalks, administration told council that next year’s budget will see an increase of $25,000 of funding for the Snow Angels program, raising total support to $75,000.