The common council shall have jurisdiction and authority to order the paving, macadamizing
and grading of any street or part thereof and shall provide for and defray the expense
thereof, or so much thereof, if any, as shall not have been, by ordinance of the common
council, approved by the board of estimate and apportionment, fixed and determined
as the amount and proportion of the expense which shall be borne by the city of Syracuse,
including the expense of improving portions of the street situated within the side
lines of intersecting streets, by local assessment to be assessed pro rata per lineal
foot of frontage upon the property fronting upon the street or part thereof in or
upon which such improvement is made; provided, however, that if any part of the street
or portion thereof so improved is occupied by the tracks of a steam railroad or street
surface railway, the assessments upon the property fronting upon the street shall
be reduced by the amount chargeable to such railroad or railway for improving that
portion of its strip lying between the center of the improved street and the side
line of the street upon which such property fronts, and provided, also, that if any
part of the roadway of the street or portion thereof so improved is wider or narrower
than other portions thereof, the assessments upon the property fronting thereon shall
be increased or diminished proportionately to the increased or diminished cost of
such improvement resulting from such variation in width. Except as herein otherwise
provided, however, no such improvement shall be undertaken unless the owners of at
least one-third of the total number of front feet lineal measurement or at least one-third
in number of the owners of property on the street or part thereof in or upon which
such proposed improvement is proposed to be made shall petition for and consent to
the making of such improvement. Such petition or consent shall be in writing, signed,
executed and acknowledged and proved in like manner as a deed to be recorded. It shall
be filed with the city clerk and shall be thereupon referred by the common council
to the assessors for examination and certification. If, after examination, the assessors,
or a majority of them, shall report that the number of property owners so required
have executed such petition or consent, and the common council shall determine to
make such improvement it shall cause a notice of the proposed improvement to be served
upon the owners of property fronting upon the street or part thereof, in or upon which
such improvement is proposed to be made, by causing a written or printed copy of such
notice to be deposited in the post office at Syracuse in a securely sealed wrapper,
postage prepaid and directed to such owners at Syracuse, New York, and also by causing
a copy thereof to be published in five (5) successive issues of the official paper
or papers. Such notice shall be sufficient notice to all persons interested and no
further or different notice of such proposed improvement shall be required. If there
be two (2) or more owners of any one piece of property service upon any one of them
shall be sufficient. Such notice shall specify the time within which any person interested
may object to such improvement, which time shall not expire within ten (10) days after
the completion of such service nor before the next regular meeting of the common council,
and that in case no objection is made within the time specified all persons interested
will be deemed to have acquiesced in the proposed improvement. Such objection must
be in writing, subscribed by the property owner objecting or his duly authorized agent
and be filed with the city clerk. If no such objection has been filed within the time
specified, the common council may at any regular meeting within three (3) months after
the expiration of said ten (10) days, by ordinance, order said improvement to be made;
but if any such objection has been filed the common council shall hear such objection
and any proof that may be offered and the improvement shall not be ordered except
by ordinance adopted by a two-thirds vote of all of the members of the common council.
The certificate of the assessors shall be endorsed upon the petition or consent and
shall be presumptive evidence of the facts therein stated.
