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ATTACHMENT A Public Works Engineering MEMORANDUM City of Eugene 858 PearlStreet Eugene, Oregon (541) 682-5291 (541) 682-5032 FAX Date: To: From: February 28, 2004 Mayor Torrey and City Council Mark Schoening, 682-5243 Subject: ALTERNATIVE ALLEY ASSESSMENT APPORTIONMENT METHODS State law requires that assessments be based upon the special and peculiar benefits accruing to a property from an improvement project. The challenge is to objectively and fairly measure benefits in such a way that a mathematical formula can be developed to apportion the costs of an improvement to the benefiting properties. It is a common practice to attribute the benefits accruing to a property to the physical attributes of the property such as area or frontage. It is less common to attribute the benefits to the use or zoning of the property because of the difficulty in objectively and fairly measuring the benefits. Land use and zoning do not translate easily into numerical factors that can be used in an assessment formula and, because zoning and land uses may change, they are not related directly to the 'special benefit' that the improvement confers on the parcel to be assessed. In addition, for purposes of measuring benefit from the improvement, land use and zoning are not good measures, because more intensive uses of the parcel do not necessarily make greater use of the alley improvement. The Municipal Charter states that ordinances amending the sections of the Eugene Code pertaining to the procedures and assessments for public improvements are not in effect until six months after Council adoption. This precludes developing an apportionment method unique to each local improvement district, a practice that is common among other municipalities. With this constraint, the past practice has been to try to develop code provisions to anticipate every possible situation that may arise. This has resulted in complex apportionment methods that are difficult to convey to property owners and difficult and costly to implement. In Eugene, alleys have historically been improved and assessed alley by alley. The West University Neighborhood alley improvement project will improve all of the unimproved alleys in the neighborhood as one construction and assessment project. The existing apportionment method for alleys requires that alley assessments be calculated for each alley segment. An alley segment is defined as the section of alley between intersecting alleys or streets.