Denver won’t replace its flagstone sidewalks, so the city’s No. 1 flagstone fan is springing into action
Reprinted from the Denverite
By Kevin Beaty
Workers with Ruben Rivera LLC (that’s him in the middle) level out flagstone slabs in front of Diane Travis’ 126-year-old home in North Capitol Hill. That’s Travis on the right watching. Sept. 5, 2018. (Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite)
Despite Wednesday evening’s rain, Diane Travis had three crews hard at work on her flagstone sidewalks to keep them in compliance with the city and as pretty as they’ve been for over a century.
Travis has lived in a 126-year-old Uptown home for 26 years and, as an avid historic preservationist, she wasn’t about to let Denver’s city-wide sidewalk renovation plan take any of that legacy away from it. And because she doesn’t want anyone else to have an excuse to lose their charming but difficult slabs, Travis hired the three companies to come out onto her yard to put on a demonstration.
Denver Public Works had been compiling a list of contractors who historic homeowners might call to revamp their flagstones, but Travis wasn’t satisfied with the options. She spent 17 years working in masonry and another 20 in architecture, and she knew about skills that would be needed to preserve flagstone that weren’t represented on the city’s list.
A little more than two weeks ago, Public Works began surveying the first section of sidewalks in their first region of focus, which includes many historic neighborhoods in central Denver. As they assess broken and uneven slabs, they’ll distribute notices to homeowners about what needs to be fixed. Residents can hire out their own labor to get back into compliance, but the city will fix it for them if they wait longer than 45 days, as per a city ordinance. Those residents will then be charged for the labor.
At a meeting last week with Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods’s historic preservation committee, Public Works Communications Director Nancy Kuhn said the city will replace flagstone with concrete as a matter of dealing with the project’s overall cost. The city will, however, help re-level flagstones if they’re just in need of realignment.
Denver is also offering financial assistance for people who qualify, but that also would not allow for broken flagstones to remain. While some neighbors present at the meeting weren’t exactly pleased to hear that, Travis committed to making sure people knew their options.
Download Flagstone Sidewalks by Diane Travis
