Morewood Avenue

Citations

• 159 Pa. 20
• 28 A. 123
• 1893 Pa. LEXIS 1472

Syllabus

<p>Municipalities — Streets—Benefits—Assessments—Paving— Constitutional law — Taxation—Act of May 16, 1891.</p> <p>Local assessments, which are a species of taxation, can be made only for improvements which confer peculiar local benefits upon property which adjoins the improvement, and even then they cannot be made if the property has once before been subjected to such an assessment.</p> <p>It is not competent to assess the cost of grading, paving and' curbing a part of one street in a city, upon properties not situate upon the street to be improved, although within ‘1 the neighborhood ” of the improvement. Such an assessment is not-authorized by the act of May 16, 1891, P. L. 71, although the 5th clause of the 1st section of that act provides that “ the viewers shall visit the improvement and personally inspect the same, and also visit and inspect the properties in the neighborhood supposed to be damaged or benefited thereby.”</p> <p>Streets — Viewers—Improvements—Damages.</p> <p>Proceedings to assess damages and benefits for the grading and paving of a street in a city of the second class are fatally defective, if the viewers base their estimate of damages entirely upon the certificate of the Chief of the Department of Public Works as to the contract price of the work done, and not upon the value thereof.</p>