Janesville, WI Property Maintenance: Snow & Sidewalk Clearing (2026)

Section 34-59 places the clearing duty on every occupant of a lot, and every owner of an unoccupied lot, that has a sidewalk in front of it: they must keep that walk and the nearest one-half of any connecting crosswalks free from snow and ice. The ordinance builds in a grace period, allowing 12 hours after each snowstorm ends before the snow that fell during that storm must be removed. A footnote to Chapter 34 points to Wis. Stats. § 66.0907(5) as the state law reference for sidewalk snow and ice removal, but the 12-hour clearing window and the duty itself are set out in the City's own Section 34-59, which sits in Article III alongside the sidewalk construction standards adopted in Sections 34-52 through 34-58.

Article III carries its own penalty clause at Section 34-63, which applies whenever a specific penalty is not otherwise provided: a forfeiture not exceeding $100.00 plus the costs of prosecution, with each day a violation continues counted as a separate offense, and imprisonment in the county jail of up to 30 days if the forfeiture and costs go unpaid. Because Section 34-59 does not name a specific dollar penalty of its own, an unshoveled sidewalk falls under this general Article III forfeiture. The rule reaches both occupied lots and unoccupied lots with an owner, so a landlord of a vacant property is on the hook the same as a tenant living at an occupied address, and the duty runs to the nearest half of any crosswalk connecting to that sidewalk as well as the sidewalk itself.