If the owners of the record title representing more than 60% of the front footage of the directly abutting property, subject to assessment for sidewalk improvements, petition the City Council to make the same, the City Council shall proceed in all things as though the construction had been ordered by it. Upon the petition of any freeholder who is an abutting owner in fee simple of property subject to assessment for sidewalk improvements, the City Council may order permanent sidewalks built in accordance with this subchapter upon the freeholder making, executing, and delivering to the city an agreement to the effect that the petitioning freeholder will pay the engineering service fee and all other incidental construction costs until paid shall be a perpetual lien upon the real estate along which the freeholder desires the sidewalk to be constructed and that the petitioner gives and grants to the city the right to assess and levy the costs of the construction against the freeholder's real estate abutting the sidewalk improvement and promises to pay the costs with interest. The total cost of the improvement shall be levied, allocated, financed, and specially assessed as provided by law. In the event the property owner is a nonresident of the county in which the property lies, the city shall, before levying any special assessment against that property, send a copy of any notice required by law to be published by means of certified mail, return receipt requested to the last known address of the nonresident property owner. The last known address shall be that address listed on the current tax rolls at the time the required notice was first published.
(1973 Code, § 8-208) (Ord. 497, passed 5-8-1980)