THE EFFICACY OF SPECIAL ASSESSMENTS
It is clear that the value of the special assessment method differs considerably in different communities and depends greatly on local conditions. The land owners of Kansas City and Denver pay special assessments practically without litigation, and as a general rule, in most cities, collection of assessments is attended with little difficulty, even where the burden is heaviest on the land owner.
The process of collection in New York City, for instance, is very effective. Like most cities where the cost of street improvement is assessed wholly or in part on property specially benefited, the owners of the land assessed may pay the entire assessment at once or in annual instalments. On the failure in payment of any instalment, the land becomes charged with the city’s lien. For three years the owner may pay interest on the amount he owes the city, but at the end of this period the city’s lien for all charges against the land is sold at auction to the person who bids the lowest rate of interest for which he will pay the face value of the lien and carry it three years more. Thus the city gets its money and the land owner merely has, in addition to the face of his assessment, an interest charge which is apt to be ridiculously low since the bidding in on city liens is usually active.
Boston is one of the few exceptions to the rule in the collection of special assessments. Property owners contest special assessments wherever a contest is made worth while by the size of the special assessment, and reductions in assessments by juries on appeal go far to destroy the effectiveness of this method as a means of providing funds for the acquisition of land; and yet land owners in Boston are treated much more leniently under the law of 1906 than they are in New York, Kansas City, Denver, or Indianapolis. One explanation of the unpopularity of the special assessment principle is that the funds used for improving the old city and opening and widening the streets were taken out of the general appropriation, and property owners, therefore, in the newer sections, or property owners in older sections where openings and widenings are necessary, are opposed to any innovation which puts on them a heavier burden. But the ineffectiveness of the special method in Boston is due chiefly, first, to the statutory limitation on the discretion of the assessing board; and second, to the provision which postpones the apportioning of the assessment until after the completion of the improvement.
The fixing of the proportion which the city must pay irrespective of the character of the street in question and the narrow limitation of the benefit area, work together to place upon a very few owners an altogether disproportionate burden. These are the unfair features of the Boston assessment law: (a) The city must pay 50 per cent at least of the cost of a purely local street, even a street 30 feet in width, the only direct benefit from which is to abutting properties; (b) the city in practice pays as high as 80 per cent of the cost of such streets, because in the opinion of the commissioners the value of the property within 125 feet on either side is sometimes so low that to assess 50 per cent on it would amount to confiscation; (c) the property that receives the most benefit is assessed nothing, particularly in the case of a widened thoroughfare where the benefit accrues certainly no more to the abutters than to the termini of the thoroughfare, or to abutters on the streets leading off from the thoroughfare whose property has been made more accessible.
The time which is allowed to elapse between the opening or widening of the street and the levying of the assessment is a further handicap to the success of special assessments in Boston as to a less degree in Seattle. The chance of offsetting benefits against damages is lost, and consequently the labor of collection is increased. Property owners who get their damages for land taken, alienate the property, and the owner not a party to the condemnation proceedings who has paid to his predecessor in title an increased price on account of the improvement to the property, naturally opposes payment of a special assessment. That most of the action under the law is a perversion of the special assessment principle has been recognized in recent Massachusetts special legislation, where the limitation on the assessment area has been removed and the size of the area left to the discretion of the street commissioners.[76]
A comparison of the returns from special assessments in Boston, in Seattle, and in Minneapolis, may be made by means of the subjoined tables:
TABLE 3.—RETURNS FROM SPECIAL ASSESSMENTS ON STREET IMPROVEMENTS. BOSTON, 1895-1906
| Location of improvement | Year | Cost of improvement | Amount assessed | Amount of reduction | Amount paid |
| Lauriat Ave. | 1895 | $45,779 | $41,201 | $34,811 | $6,390 |
| Brighton Ave. | 1895 | 201,699 | 117,270 | 42,506 | 74,764 |
| Columbus Ave. | 1895 | 1,818,901 | 373,127 | [77] | [77] |
| Peterboro St. | 1896 | 187,264 | 95,457 | 78,983 | 16,474 |
| Queensberry St. | 1897 | 196,568 | 87,565 | 32,448 | 55,117 |
| Charlestown St. | 1898 | 696,673 | 212,229 | 81,830 | [78] |
| North Harvard St. | 1898 | 70,443 | 23,721 | 11,162 | 12,559 |
| Bennington St. | 1899 | 831,816 | 54,812 | [79] | [79] |
| Florida St. | 1903 | 16,120 | 4,392 | 2,668 | 1,724 |
| Columbia Rd. | .. | 1,792,891 | 296,493 | 13,307 | [80] |
| Hyde Park Ave. | 1906 | 225,000 | 28,000 | About 50 per cent | About 50 per cent |
There have been remarkably few contests on any assessments in Minneapolis. The park board has been able to pay every instalment on every certificate as it matured without a moment’s delay. All the assessments are collectible as a part of the annual tax for state, county, and city purposes.