On petition of Meghan Riley and 25 or more registered voters, shall the Town of Hampton vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $520,000 for construction of a sidewalk on Mace Road within the Town’s right of way for the safety of our residents.
Background: Project reviewed by appropriate parties and estimate includes necessary elements required for construction (tree removal etc.)? Majority vote required
What it means: The petitioners who put forward this article are asking for just over a half-mile of sidewalk to be installed along Mace Rd. There are already sidewalks along 2 portions of a large triangle including Mill Road and High Street. But Mace Road does not have a Sidewalk, creating safety concerns for residents using the area to exercise, walk dogs, push strollers and use wheelchairs/walkers.
Those in favor say: The major objective of this project is to correct a safety issue, as Mace Road is used by many families to access Five Corners Park, Marston School and Hampton Academy, as well as to jog and ride bikes). A Mace Road sidewalk is part of the long-term sidewalk plan, but implementation is several years out. In the meantime, pedestrians are at risk. One of the speakers told the story of a young girl who was killed in 1988 on the neighboring portion of High Street, and that was when a sidewalk was installed there. The combination of being a frequently-used path for pedestrians, the ever-increasing traffic rate, and the tendency for drivers to be distracted is creating an imminent danger. The purpose of addressing this now as a petitioned Warrant Article is to mitigate the risk of anyone being injured while we await the longer-term plan implementation. All property to be used is within the Town’s Right of Way.
Those against say: There is a plan in Hampton to work on sidewalks and that is how this should be addressed, as opposed to through a Warrant Article.
Fiscal impact: The $520,000 cost in 2019 will create an additional tax cost for the average Hampton home valued at $405,000 of $63.24. (Take your property value divided by 1000 and multiply by .155 to get your specific tax impact.) This decision affects the current year only.