Читать книгу American Rural Highways - T. R. Agg - Страница 15

The paramount problem in highway administration is the development of an adequate financial plan for carrying on road improvement. The necessary expenditures are enormous, although the money so expended is probably much less than the actual benefit resulting from the improvements.

Special Assessments.—There is presumed to be a direct and recognized benefit conferred on farm lands by the construction of improved highways adjacent thereto. Therefore, it is equitable to charge a part of the cost against the lands so benefited.

The principle of paying for public improvements by a special assessment upon private property has been long established and a large proportion of the public improvements in the cities and towns have been made financially possible through the medium of special assessments on abutting and adjacent property. The same principle has been applied to the financing of drainage projects for reclaiming farm lands. Recently the special assessment method has come into limited use in financing rural highway improvements. The policy in such cases is to assess the abutting and adjacent property in a zone along the improved road for a percentage of the cost of the improvement. The amount so assessed does not ordinarily exceed one-fourth of the total cost of the improvement and may be considerably less. The assessment is spread over an area extending back from one to six miles from the improved road. The assessment area is generally divided into about four zones parallel to the road. The zone next the road is assessed at a rate arbitrarily determined as a fair measure of the benefit, and each succeeding zone is assessed at a somewhat lower rate. Generally about three-fourths of the total assessment is placed on the half of the assessment area lying next to the road.

Many systems of making assessments have been proposed which are mechanical in application after the area and rate of distribution of benefit have been established, but in practice it is always found necessary to make adjustments on individual parcels of land because of variation in benefits received and it is impossible to eliminate the exercise of human judgment in equalizing the assessments.

Zone Method of Assessing.—The area to be assessed on each side of the improved road is divided into zones usually four in number, but a larger or smaller number of zones may be adopted. The rate for each zone is then arbitrarily determined. For a typical case, the first of four zones would receive an assessment of 50 per cent of the amount to be borne by the area; the second zone 25 per cent, the third 15 per cent and the fourth 10 per cent. Other percentages sometimes adopted are 45, 25, 20 and 10 and 60, 20, 15 and 5. The set of percentages first mentioned seems to insure the most equitable distribution for an area all of which is substantially equally productive.

When a road, for the improvement of which an assessment is being made, lies on two or more sides of a parcel of land all of which is within the assessment area, the rate is arbitrarily reduced to relieve that parcel of land somewhat, or the assessment is first spread as above outlined and afterward equalized as judgment dictates.

In applying the zone method some difficulty is encountered in determining an equitable distribution on those parcels of land lying partly in one zone and partly in another, but the rate may be arrived at with reasonable accuracy by pro-rating in accordance with the exact conditions.

In. Fig. 1, let it be assumed that the assessment area is to be two miles wide, one mile on each side of the road and the various ownerships to be indicated by the parcels of land numbered 1 to 8, as shown. Each zone for the assessment of the 3¼ mile section is ¼ mile wide and the rates for the several zones are 50, 25, 15 and 10 per cent respectively. Let it be assumed that the portion of the cost of the 3¼ miles of road to be assessed on the area shown is $20,000. The assessment would then be as follows: