The residents of a home at the corner of Lyndhurst Gate and Brighton Lane in Steinbach have asked the city to change the location of a new sidewalk being installed this spring along Brighton. Bernie Hiebert told city council Tuesday the sidewalk will be five feet from their dining room window when the city could easily move the sidewalk closer to the street.

"We have a large dining room window overlooking the side yard. And, when you have a sidewalk that's close enough that people can spit against your window as they walk by, it's a personal thing. Brighton Lane has a very wide boulevard so we feel there is room to move on the sidewalk. We really don't feel that given all the room that there is, that it's fair to us to force us to look our neighbours in the eye when they walk by and we're sitting at our dining room table."

But city engineer Phil Kalyta says the sidewalk is being placed in accordance with a standard policy that it be situated on the city's right-of-way as far as possible from the street, for pedestrian safety and comfort. He adds there are major utilities like sewer and gas lines beneath the other part of the right-of-way and a sidewalk cannot go over the top of them. Kalyta says the root of this problem lies with the developer of the neighbourhood.

"This particular developer in this area asked for the zoning to be revised to go from an eight-foot side yard to a five-foot side yard. So that allowance for that side yard kind of created this."

City council decided to uphold its policy and the location of the sidewalk will remain as originally planned.

City councillor John Fehr says he is upset that city council is being made to look like the bad guy here when it was a situation created by the developer.

"I agree with the Hieberts, I wouldn't want to have somebody walking five feet from where I'm having coffee in the morning. But my point is that it would be nice if people would be told (by the developer and realtor) that there was a variance on that property. We were cast into a situation here that should not have been our problem."