Ames, IA Property Maintenance: Snow & Sidewalk Clearing (2026)

Ames Municipal Code Sec. 22.2 gives the abutting property owner the duty to promptly clear snow, ice, and other accumulations from the sidewalk in the right-of-way. The clock set by subsection (2) is ten (10) daylight hours measured from the end of the storm or the cause of the accumulation, not ten hours of any kind, so an overnight snowfall gives the owner a window measured in daylight rather than calendar time. If snow or ice is still on the sidewalk after that ten-daylight-hour window, subsection (3) authorizes the City Manager to have the accumulation removed after giving the owner reasonable notice, and to assess the actual cost of that removal against the property.

This mirrors the abutting-owner maintenance duty for the sidewalk itself in the immediately preceding Sec. 22.1, and both duties sit inside Chapter 22's penalty structure: Sec. 22.26 makes any violation of the chapter, including a failure to clear snow in time, a municipal infraction punishable by $500 for a first violation and $750 for each repeat violation. Public Works and code enforcement handle complaints and can dispatch a notice to the property owner before either citing the property or ordering city-contracted removal. The rule long predates the current code numbering, tracing to Ordinance No. 805 and the 1956 Code Sections 41-1 through 41-3, carried forward through the 2024 right-of-way definitions update in Ord. No. 4517.