Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1914-03-03
shalltoWn.

shalltown.
At Marshalltown several years
ago owners of forty corner lots ap-
pealed to the district court from as
sessments made by their city coun
Gil for asphalt paving on the sides
of said lots when the front of the
lots had already been paved and
the lots assessed therefore. After
being tried out in three courts be-
fore three different district judges
the judicial opinion was unanimous
that the cost of street paving on
both the front and long side of
residence corner lot was in excess
of the benefit and the city was COM
PEELED to pay for 40 per cent of the
cost of the paving on the long side.
These cases were not adjudicated
in the supreme court for the city at
torney settled on the basis of the
three lower court decisions. Then
paving was agitated at Webster City
and the corner lot cases at Mar
shalltown were exploited in the
Webster City F'reeman-Tribune for
the benefit of property owners there.
Senator Chase from Webster City
was instrumental in writing into
law the principle of equity involved
in the corner lot decisions and we
now have new law stating that
whenever property is to be assessed
for paving under the old law the
property to be assessed shall be ac-
cording to area rather than accord
ing to street frontage and shall in
clude half of the property lying be-
tween the street improved and the
next street.
This principle of area as the basis
of assessment rather than of 'front.'
age was laid down in Judge Brad
shaw's opinion in the Morgan case
at MarshalltGwn. He held that il a
lot fronting on the side street had
been plotted sixty feet wide and $50
deep extending across the back of
three lots it would under the street
frontage rule come in for the same
assessment as the front third of that
lot 6Ox60 which he considered man
ifestly inequitable. Judge Brad
shaw said as to corner lot:
1T is undoubtedly true that a
corner lot, other things being equal,
is more valuable than an inside lot,
and that the special benefits to a
corner lot may be conceded to be
greater than the Improvement in
front of an inside lot. But the court
Is OF the opinion that there is too
great disproportion or discrimin-
alton In the assessment of the two
classes of property to be equitable
or just
This is what can be termed a
common sense rule of law and the
'lty's attorney was justified in set
ling without needless appeal to
he supreme court. Senator Chase
himself lawyer, evidently saw the
Justice in 1t and sought to write the
principle into the Iowa law by leg
slative enactment without waiting
or the supreme court to do it by iu-
icial decree. However, the Water
90 Reporter has called attention
lightly to the fact that this new
tatute has nothing whatever to do
With the paving of street and alley
intersections. A separate bill to
over that failed to pass the legis-
ature. The new law covers ONLY
he paving AUDITING private proper
but it seeks to set up the total
rea rule for measuring the benefits
1stead Of the street frontage rule
nd this area is to include all prop
rty lying nearer to the street i'm
roved than to any other street, but
| no case more than 800 feet dis
int.