What was the reasoning behind doing it for only such a small area

The building adjacent to the walkway is always responsible of the maintenance of the walkway. Sanding it in the winter and clearing the snow. Approx. 2 meters from the wall. Most housing cooperatives don't want it because it's of course expensive to install but easier to maintenance when the winter comes. Ideally the heated walkway should keep the street dry and without snow or ice all the time but when the weather changes a lot below and above zero, or there's a lot of snow, it's slow. The heat will do the clearing at some point but not instantly and lately the temperature has changed a lot from 0 to -10 and to -20 and back to almost 0.