Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett says it’s time for residents and business owners to shovel snow from their sidewalks.
The county announced it will begin accepting complaints at 10 a.m. Thursday about sidewalks that remain full of snow or ice. Complaints can be filed online on the county’s 311 website.
Because of the large amount of snow that fell over the weekend, county officials said Monday that any enforcement of the 24 hour sidewalk snow removal law “would be reasonable and follow common sense.”
The county’s sidewalk snow removal law requires all private property owners to remove snow on sidewalks abutting their properties within 24 hours after the end of a snowstorm.
On Wednesday, Leggett announced the county will begin investigating complaints.
“Soon schoolchildren will be returning to school. For those who have already cleared their walks, I say ‘Thank you.’ For those who haven’t, now is the time—about 90 hours after the storm passed,” Leggett said in a county press release. “This is important so that schoolchildren are not walking in the street, so that seniors can get where they need to go, and so that all pedestrians and commuters using Ride On and Metro can get around safely.”
If a snow plow moves snow back onto an already cleared sidewalk, that property owner has another 24 hours to re-clear the sidewalk.
The county enforces the sidewalk snow removal law based on complaints from residents.
Last winter the county’s Department of Housing and Community Affairs reported 594 complaints about unshoveled sidewalks after four separate snow events, none of which brought at much snow as the 18 to 39 inches that fell around the county last weekend.
Housing inspectors are responsible for enforcing the county’s sidewalk snow removal law. Property owners who are found in violation of the law are first given a warning, usually in the form of a letter. Those who still don’t remove snow or ice from sidewalks after the warning could then be given a $50 citation.
Last year, only two properties in Silver Spring—a church on Fairland Road and a homeowner near Layhill Road—were issued citations.
In October 2014, the County Council passed a Sidewalk Snow Removal law that requires the county to identify and map high-volume pedestrian routes, bus stops and sidewalks in school zones that could be added to the county’s snow removal work. The county has yet to present the map.
