The Town Council is authorized to lay out ways
therein and may, at any time within two years after the passage of
an order laying out, relocating, altering, widening, grading or discontinuing
a way and after the work has been completed or the way has been discontinued,
if such order declares that such action has been taken under the provisions
of law authorizing the assessments of betterments, and if in its opinion
any land receives a benefit or advantage therefrom beyond the general
advantage to all land in the town, determine the value of such benefit
or advantage to such land and assess upon the same a proportional
share of the cost of such laying out, relocation, alteration, widening,
grading or discontinuance; but no assessment shall exceed 1/2 of the
amount of such adjudged benefit or advantage.
The Town Clerk shall notify all abutters who
shall be affected by a vote of the Town Council which will affect
them under the town's Betterment Act. This notice shall be mailed
no less than 30 days before the Council meeting at which the vote
thereon shall be taken. In case of special meetings, two weeks shall
be sufficient.
A.
If such assessment is invalid and has not been paid
or has been recovered back, it may be reassessed by the Town Council
to the amount for which the original assessment ought to have been
made, and it shall be a lien upon the land and shall be collected
in the same manner as reassessed taxes.
B.
The cost so assessed shall include all damages for
land and buildings taken. The damages for land taken shall be fixed
at the value thereof before such laying out, relocation, alteration,
widening, grading or discontinuance and shall also include the value
of all buildings on the land a part of which is taken, deducting therefrom
the value of materials removed and of all buildings or parts of buildings
remaining thereon. Such cost shall be paid in the manner and upon
the conditions required in like proceedings.
An owner of land abutting on any such way liable
to such assessment may give notice, in writing, to the Town Council
before the estimate of damages is made that he elects to surrender
his land, and if the Town Council adjudges that the public convenience
and necessity require the taking of such abutting estate for the improvements
named, it may take the whole thereof and shall thereupon estimate
its value, excluding the benefit or advantage accruing from such improvements.
Such owner shall convey the estate to the town and may recover therefrom
in any action of contract the value so estimated. The town may sell
any portion of such land which is not needed for such improvements.
If any owner any time before demand gives notice
to the Town Council to apportion the assessment into three equal parts
and certify its apportionment to the assessors, who shall add one
of such parts, with interest from the date of the apportionment, to
the annual tax of such land for each of three years next ensuing.
All such assessments which remain unpaid after they become due shall
bear interest until the payment thereof.
A.
A person who is aggrieved by the doings of the Town
Council may within one year file a petition in the Superior Court
for the county in which the land is situated and after notice to the
land shall have a trial by a jury therein, and upon request of either
party the jury shall take a view.
B.
If the jury does not reduce the assessment, the respondent
shall recover costs, which shall be a lien upon the land and shall
be collected in the same manner as the assessment; but if the jury
reduces the assessment, the petitioner shall recover costs.
If any assessment is made upon land the whole
or part of which is leased, the owner shall pay the assessment and
may collect of the lessee an additional rent for the portion so leased
equal to 10% per annum on that portion of the amount paid which the
leased portion bears to the whole estate after deducting from the
whole amount any money received for damages to such land in excess
of what he has necessarily expended thereon by reason of such damages.