181 Iowa 660 | Iowa | 1917
Proceeding according to the terms of the statute as it stood prior to the enactment of Chapter 76 of the Laws of the Thirty-fifth General Assembly, the city council levied' the special assessment for the expense of the paving upon
“Section 1. Whenever, gfter January 1, 1911, any city or town council, including the councils of cities acting under special charter, levies any special assessment for street improvement, as provided by Section 792 of the Code and amendments thereto and supplementary thereof, the same shall be made in accordance with the provisions of Section 792-a of the Supplement to the Code, 1907, and shall be limited to the amount to be assessed against private property, against all lots and parcels of land according to area, so as to include one half of the privately owned property between the street improved and the next street, whether such privately owned property abut upon said street or not, but in no case shall privately owned property situated more than 300 feet from the street so improved be so assessed.”
The proceedings in the city council looking to the paving of Seventeenth Street were initiated by the usual resolution of necessity, which was introduced December 22, 1913. The resolution included a statement to the effect that the expense of the improvement would be assessed against the “private property abutting thereon to the extent that the same is assessable by law, said assessments to be made in accordance with the law governing the same.” This resolution was published four times in a city newspaper, the last
When the appeal from the ruling of the city council was heard beloAV, this court had but recently decided the case of Benshoof v. Iowa Falls, 175 Iowa 30, concerning the application of the same statute to an assessment for street paving, and, under the circumstances there shown, it was held that such assessment, though not made until after January 1,1914, should have been levied according to the terms of the old statute, and it is quite possible that the trial court
The cause will, therefore, be remanded to the district court, with instructions to enter a decree sustaining plaintiff’s objection to the assessment laid upon her property. And, as it appears that the error of the city council in this