City of Spokane v. Fonnell

Citations

• 75 Wash. 417
• 135 P. 211
• 1913 Wash. LEXIS 1728

Syllabus

<p>Municipal Corporations — Public Improvements — Assessments— Benefits. Access to a public park by tbe opening of a street is suck a special benefit as will justify an assessment for benefits to adjacent property although the same does not abut upon the street to be opened.</p> <p>Same — Assessments—Limits of Districts — Review. The action of commissioners in fixing the limits of assessment districts for a local improvement is conclusive on the courts in the absence of mistake, fraud or arbitrary discrimination amounting to an abuse of discretion.</p> <p>Same — Assessments—-Benefits to City. Neither access to a public park by the opening of a street, nor the increase in the value of the taxable property is of such a special benefit to the city at large as to make it an abuse of discretion to refuse to assess part of the cost of the improvement against the city.</p> <p>Same — Assessments — Benefits—-Review—Evidence—Sufficiency. The uniformity of an assessment upon lots abutting on a street opened by condemnation proceedings is not alone sufficient ground for setting aside the assessment roll, although the evidence tends to show that some lots were benefited more than others, when there was no such disparity as to make it essential that they be assessed in different amounts.</p> <p>Same — Review—Evidence—Sufficiency. The prima facie correctness of an assessment for benefits by the opening of a street, which thereby made a public park accessible to the property assessed, is not overcome, although there was much evidence tending to show that the property was not benefited, where it was peculiarly a question of opinion as to just what distance from the park accessibility thereto should be considered sufficient basis for an assessment.</p> <p>Same — Review—Arbitrary Assessments — Evidence — Sufficiency. Where the only benefit to property in an assessment district, other than that fronting upon the street to be opened, was that derived from an easier access to a public pa