The Unfair Cost of Sidewalks
Local property owners protest an assessment system that penalizes owners on smaller streets with uneven, heavy tax burdens for infrastructure improvements.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The charter with regard to grading and the building of sidewalks should be changed as early as possible. As it is now, assessment districts are created for desired improvements and the property-holders are taxed in proportion to the value of their property. To show how unjust this operates, attention is called to the recent creation of an assessment district for the building of a sidewalk on the north side of Yakima Avenue, from Second street to Third, and up Third to B street. Chappell & Cox own fifty feet of frontage on Yakima avenue. They will have to pay $117 for building their sidewalk, while the taxes against some of the lots having an equal frontage on Third street will amount to less than $50. This inequality would not have been so great had the district been smaller, but the system is a bad one anyway and should be altered as early as possible.
“This inequality would not have been so great had the district been smaller, but the system is a bad one anyway.”
The protest against municipal assessment districts—where some property owners pay significantly more than others for the same sidewalk improvement—mirrors modern complaints about the inequity of local improvement districts (LIDs) and urban development levies.
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