Item 5: Ordinance Levying Assessments for West University Alleys

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initiation of the project. This public involvement included decisions on which alleys needed attention. The public involvement continued with a well attended public hearing leading to the formation of the local improvement district. Public involvement continued, and has culminated in a well attended public hearing on the proposed assessments. Minutes of that meeting are to be found in the attached Exhibit A. While the members of the public who appeared at the public hearing described in Exhibit A objected to at least a portion of the assessment proposed for their property, few expressed any doubts about the need for the alley improvements. A few members of the public who appeared suggested that, rather than their property being assessed the entire cost of the improvements, the City should pay a portion of the costs of the improvements. Most of the arguments suggesting that the City pay some of the costs focused on the allegation that the improvements were motivated by the need to correct problems leading to and associated with civil unrest in the area. These property owners argued that, because the motive behind the improvement was to address a problem that concerned either the entire neighborhood or the City as a whole, the costs of the improvements should be shared more broadly. The allocation of the benefits of a public improvement is a difficult policy decision, one that the Council must make. In this case the Council was responding to the civil problems in the West University Neighborhood when it examined alley assessments and established the current policy. After discussing the improvements needed in the West University Neighborhood, the Council looked at the Code policies and made it even more clear that adjacent property owners were to pay the entire cost of the alley assessments. It is difficult to imagine a more clear affirmation that the present assessments reflect Council policy. Calculating and assigning benefits looks at tangible matters such as present and future use of the public improvement. But it also looks at other, less easily measured elements of the overall benefit of a public improvement. The question is not whether others might benefit from a public improvement, the question that the Council must decide is whether the benefits received by the properties to be assessed are reflected in the assessments they receive - whether the properties to be assessed are sufficiently benefited to justify the assessable costs levied on them. Of course the public in general benefits from public improvement projects, that is why the projects are initiated as a public improvement. There are many public improvement projects where there are no assessments levied. This is no doubt in part because of a determination that no particular property benefits more than any other property. Where it is possible to identify properties that do benefit more than the general run, then it is possible to consider assessing these properties. In the case of the alley improvements, it is true that the West University Task Force recommended alley improvements because this would help address problems of the West University area as a whole. The problem of unrest in the area was one important factor, although not the only one. Certainly the neighborhood and the City can benefit from improvements that are designed to lessen the risk of unrest. But who among all the property owners in the City are LOCAL IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT ASSESSMENTS FOR ALLEY IMPROVEMENTS IN THE WEST UNIVERSITY NEIGHBORHOOD Page 5