Evening times-Republican., 1914-02-28
CORNER LOT ASSESSMENTS.

CORNER LOT ASSESSMENTS.
Owners Of corner lots in Iowa cities
and towns need not live in fear of the
corner lot assessment for street paving
any more, for the paving law of Iowa
was changed by the last legislature
providing that the whole area Of prop.
erty within quarter OF q block could
be assessed for the benefits to be de-
rived from paving around the corner
from alley to corner and from corner
to alley. Heretofore the custom had
been to assess paving according to the
frontage which placed four times the
burden upon a corner lot that was as
sessed to the lot next to it and that
was called an assessment according
to benefit until the question was sue
cessfully resisted in the district courts
at Marsha!ltown.
At Marshalltown several years ago
owners OF forty corner lots appealed to
the district court from assessments
made by their city council 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
before three different district Judges
the judicial opinion was unanimous
that the cost of street paving on both
the front and long side Of a residence
corner lot was in excess of the benefit
and the city was compelled 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
agitated at Webster City and the
corner lot cases at Marshalltown were
exploited in the Webster City Free
man-Tribune for the benefit OF prop
erty owners there. Senator Chase from
Webster City was instrumental in
writing into law the principle Of equity
and we now have a new law stating
that whenever property is to be as
sessed for paving under the old law the
property to be assessed shall be ac-
cordng to area rather than according
to street frontage and shall include half
of the property lying between the street
i,1or he c$r
This principle Of area as the basis
Of assessment rather than of frontage
was laid down in Judge Bradshaw's
opinion in the Morgan case at Mar
shalltown. He held that if lot 'front.'
ing on the side street had been plotted
sixty feet wide and $50 deep extend-
ing across The back Of three lots 1t
would under the street frontage rule
come in for the same assessment as
the front third Of that lot 60x60 which
ne considered manifestly inequitable.
Judge Bradshaw said as to a corner
lot:
ut 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 a dtsproportion or
discrimination in the assessment Of the
two classes Of property to be equitable
or just"
&c -bof 1,a{
mon sense rule Of law and the citys
attorney was justified in settling with
out a needless appeal to the supreme
court. Sena tor Chase, himself a law
yer, evidently saw the justice in it and
sought to write the principle into the
Iowa law by legislative enactment
without waiting for the supreme court
to do 1t by judicial decree. However,
the Waterloo Reporter has called at
tention rightly to the fact that this
new statute has nothing whatever to
do with the paving OF street and alley
intersections. A separate bill to cover
that failed to pass the legislature The
! new law covers only the paving abut-
ting private property but 1t seeks to
set UP the total area rule for measuring
the benefits instead Of the street 'front.'
age rule and this area is to include
| all property lying nearer to the street
improved than to any other street. but
in no case more than 300 feet distant.