HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A manhole maintenance mystery is unfolding in southeast Houston.
Paul Valdez, who’s lived at his home for 17 years, said there’s a buckling sidewalk, just feet away from his property, and he was told by 311 he has to fix it.
“This doesn’t happen overnight, all those cracks,” Valdez said.
Valdez said he started noticing the damage four years ago.
“My concerns are that since the school bus stop is at the corner. Is that somebody is going to trip? At night, somebody is going to walk through it, get hurt,” Valdez said.
It’s all surrounding a city of Houston sewer manhole.
Valdez told ABC13 he’s reached out to 311, three different times over the past few years and most recently received a response saying the case is closed and the maintenance for the manhole is his responsibility as the property owner.
“I consider it not my property there,” Valdez said.
Valdez added that at this point he just wants it fixed.
“I said well, in that case I’m going to go ahead and cover the whole thing and you’re not going to like it, and that’s what I said, and so I hung up and I called Channel 13,” Valdez said.
Action 13 looked into the sidewalk ordinance and the city’s sidewalk program.
It states that property owners of the adjoining sidewalk are responsible for the repairs and maintenance of the sidewalk.
“If this is my property, then somebody is going to have to pay me rent for the past 17 years of using my property as a drain hole,” Valdez said.
ABC13 is still working to determine whether this is, in fact, Valdez’s responsibility.
On Thursday, Houston Public Works responded to ABC13 saying they’d take care of the repair in this statement:
“We are going to investigate and repair the underlying source of this problem, since it is in the department’s best interest to protect and preserve our underground stormwater infrastructure. We expect these repairs to be completed within the next 2 weeks.”
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