Beacon Hill Residents Revolt Over Grade Taxes
Property owners on South Twelfth and Fourteenth streets refuse to pay for grading they claim was never completed.
Property owners along South Twelfth and South Fourteenth streets are mounting a challenge against city tax assessments. They contend the streets remain in an unfinished, impassable condition despite city claims. Residents argue that the original grading was shoddy, leaving the area in a worse state than before, and that the city is attempting to levy a new, higher tax under a new charter to fix its own failures. They intend to fight the assessment in the supreme court.
“An inspection of the street at the south portion reveals the fact that the street is utterly impassable for man or beast.”
The ongoing tension between Seattle residents, infrastructure quality, and tax burdens is a classic feature of local politics. The Beacon Hill residents' struggle against city-mandated improvement assessments for work that was never properly finished remains a very familiar civic argument in Seattle today.
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