Sumter County, FL Sidewalk & Pedestrian Rules: Sidewalk Repair (2026)

Section 20-86 lists the facilities the county will approve or permit inside a county road right-of-way but will not fund or maintain itself. Subsection (a) addresses residential sidewalks directly: those built by builders and developers under the county's subdivision regulations are excluded from county maintenance, and the section places the repair duty squarely on abutting property owners. The same section also assigns decorative entrances, gates, walls and nonstandard street signs to the developer or homeowners in subsection (b), and keeps landscaped medians, street lighting and private driveways off the county's maintenance rolls in subsections (c) through (f).

By contrast, Section 20-85 shows what the county does maintain on accepted roads: the traveled roadway, shoulders, side ditches, drainage structures and signage within an accepted right-of-way. Section 20-86 draws a clear line between those county-funded elements and the sidewalks, walls and lighting that stay a private responsibility even though they sit inside the public right-of-way. The rule was adopted as part of the county's 2008 roads and bridges recodification, Ordinance No. 2008-01, § 6, and amended by Ordinance No. 2016-08, § 3 in 2016 to add the commercial and industrial driveway maintenance list that now follows it.

A property owner who lets a sidewalk crack or heave faces no fine written into this section itself, but the county can still pursue a public-nuisance or code-enforcement remedy for a hazardous walkway under the Code's general provisions.