In re Eighth Avenue Northwest

Citations

• 77 Wash. 570
• 138 P. 10
• 1914 Wash. LEXIS 946

Syllabus

<p>Municipal Corporations — Improvements — Assessment Districts — Power to Fix Limits. Tbe legislature has power to provide, as in Rem. & Bal. Code, § 7790, that a city directing a public improvement may, in the initiatory ordinance, fix the limits of the assessment district, and that the same shall be conclusive on the commissioners; and the action of the city thereunder is legislative in character and beyond the control of the courts.</p> <p>Same — Benefits—Assessments—Limit. The power of the city, under Rem. & Bal. Code, § 7790, to fix the limits of an assessment district does not authorize a levy of the whole cost of the improvement upon the district, regardless of benefits; in view of Const., art. 7, § 9, providing that the city may make local improvements by special assessment of property benefited, and clearly intending to limit the assessments to the amount of the benefits.</p> <p>Same • — • Benefits — Assessments—Apportionment—Restrictions. Under Rem. & Bal. Code, § 7790, providing that no property shall be assessed more than it is actually benefited, and Id., § 7795, providing that if property has been assessed more or less than its proportionate share, the court shall determine the proper amount and give judgment accordingly, property cannot be assessed in a greater amount than its relative benefit; hence, where the city has fixed an assessment district excluding lands that are benefited, the commissioners must take into consideration the benefit accruing thereto, and charge the lands within the district with only such proportions of the cost as corresponds to their proportion of the benefits, even if the assessment district was actually benefited to the full extent of the cost.</p> <p>Same — Benefits—Assessments—Apportionment—Method. The assessment of lands within an assessment district for the total cost of an improvement, is arbitrary and upon a fundamentally wrong basis, where the commissioners testified that other land outside the district was also b