New Bedford, MA Sidewalk & Pedestrian Rules: Sidewalk Repair (2026)

Section 22-35 lets the city engineer set fees that abutters pay for new sidewalk and curb work, such as granite curbing installed per lineal foot or bituminous sidewalk laid per square yard. But subsection (8) draws a hard line: that fee authority applies only to installing sidewalks where none existed before. No city department, board, or officer can impose a repair or maintenance charge on a resident or property owner for a sidewalk that already existed in front of their lot, and any such charge requires City Council approval regardless.

The one carve-out is upgrades: if a resident wants their existing sidewalk replaced with a substantially different material than what was there (for example, swapping asphalt for stamped concrete), the owner is responsible only for the difference in material cost, and only after giving informed consent to that upgrade. This scheme sits inside Article II, Construction and Maintenance, of Chapter 22, alongside the city engineer's authority to require bonded contractors and street-disturbance permits for any work in the public right-of-way. Because routine sidewalk repair is a city cost, abutters who see a broken slab should report it to the department of public infrastructure rather than assume they must hire a contractor themselves, unless they are the ones requesting a discretionary material upgrade.