Court Opinion

ID: 9608187
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:07:28.860612+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:44.313944
License: Public Domain

Sweeney, C.J.
(dissenting) — The dispositive question here is whether the Brooks Street Local Improvement District No. 1086 (LID) specially benefited John and Nancy Kusky’s property. RCW 35.44.010. It did. The expense to remove the underground storage tanks and clean up the soil and groundwater contamination should not be considered in calculating whether the LID specially benefited the Kuskys’ property.
RCW 35.44.010 provides that "[a]ll property included within the limits of a local improvement district. . . shall be considered to be the property specially benefited by the local improvement and shall be the property to be assessed to pay the cost and expense thereof or such part thereof as may be chargeable . . . .” (Emphasis added.) An assessment is presumed to be proper. And a city is presumed to have acted legally and properly. Bellevue Plaza, Inc. v. City of Bellevue, 121 Wn.2d 397, 403, 851 P.2d 662 (1993) ("improvement is presumed to be a benefit”). The party at*502tacking the assessment has the burden of going forward with credible evidence to rebut those presumptions. In re Indian Trail Trunk Sewer Sys., 35 Wn. App. 840, 842-43, 670 P.2d 675 (1983) (efficacy of presumption lost if the party attacking the assessment adduces credible evidence to the contrary), review denied, 100 Wn.2d 1037 (1984).
Michael Griffin, the Kuskys’ real estate appraiser, stated in his declaration that the LID devalued the property because the Kuskys incurred significant costs to remove the underground storage tanks and to clean up the contaminated soil and groundwater. His opinion was also based on the fact that the Depártment of Ecology placed the Kuskys’ property on the hazardous waste site register. A local bank president stated that his bank’s policy is not to refinance or loan money against property listed on the site register as contaminated property.
Clearly, if the storage tanks and petroleum contamination are considered, the Kuskys’ property has suffered a diminution in value. But the inquiry is whether the LID— the improvement of the road by the City—resulted in a diminution of the Kuskys’ property. RCW 35.44.010. As defined by the City of Goldendale Ordinance No. 1086, the scope of the LID, which the Kuskys and other neighbors petitioned for, was solely intended to widen and resurface Brooks Street, install curbs, overlay and widen existing curbs, and upgrade drainage. The unfortunate discovery and coincidental removal and clean up of the underground storage tanks was not part of the LID. The problem surfaced because of the road improvement, but that does not make it part of the LID.
The Kuskys have not rebutted the presumption that the property was "specially benefited by the local improvement . . . .” RCW 35.44.010 (emphasis added). I would reverse the annulment of the assessment.