Section
6.500 Findings.
6.501 Definitions.
6.502 Alternative Method of Collection and Severability.
6.503 Application for Assessment.
6.504 Notice.
6.505 Withdrawal of Application.
6.506 Hearing.
6.507 Confirmation of Assessment.
6.508 Collection of Assessment.
6.509 Deposit in Fund.
6.510 Payments from Fund.
6.511 Conventional Billings for Essential Utilities Services.
6.512 Effective Date of Chapter; Prior Overdue and Unpaid Billings.
6.513 Priority of Assessment.
6.514 Trash Disposal Services.
6.515 Time Extension.
6.516 Clearing Title.
(a) The City Council of the City of Los Angeles hereby finds that the providing of essential public utilities to residential real properties is essential to the health and welfare of the residents occupying the residential real properties, contributes to the usefulness and value of residential real properties and when such essential public utilities are not provided the health, welfare, and the public safety of the residents are placed at risk due to the fact that the failure to provide essential public utilities causes premises to become uninhabitable by law (Civil Code Section 1941 et seq.) as well as hazardous and substandard, causing the creation of a nuisance pursuant to Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 91.8902.
(b) The City Council of the City of Los Angeles further finds that the providing of essential public utilities services to residential real properties constitutes a special benefit to such real properties and to the owners thereof.
(c) The City Council of the City of Los Angeles further finds that tenants of these residential real properties pay rent with the reasonable expectation that the utilities will be paid by the owner and that when an owner or owners of real property are unwilling to pay the costs of providing essential public utilities services to residential real properties the termination of utilities to these properties would create uninhabitable premises and constitute a direct threat to the health and safety of the residents of the properties. Such a threat would in fact be a nuisance placing the health and welfare of the residents of the properties at risk. In such cases, the cost of providing essential public utilities services, as well as the unpaid cost of such services provided to properties in the past, under the same ownership, should be assessed to such real properties, made a lien upon such properties by the City of Los Angeles pursuant to its authority to abate nuisances, and thereafter paid in the same manner as payment is made for other essential public services furnished to and benefiting real properties.
SECTION HISTORY
Chapter 8 added by Ord. No. 162,383, Eff. 7-23-87.
Amended by: Subsec. (a) and (c), Ord. No. 170,164, Eff. 1-19-95.
“Application for assessment” as used in this chapter means the procedure whereby a department of the City of Los Angeles which provides one or more essential public utilities services requests that an assessment be levied for the cost of providing its service.
“Cost of providing essential public utilities service” as used in this chapter means the established rates for furnishing of water and electric power, together with all lawfully established taxes, surcharges, and fees upon such costs or service and other charges generally collected with utility payments. With respect to trash disposal service, the said “cost” shall be that charged to comparable real properties, considering the size of the improvement and the number of persons residing thereon, in the vicinity of the real property to be assessed by private trash pick-up and disposal services as determined by informal solicitation of written or oral proposals to furnish such services.
“Essential public utilities or utility service” as used in this chapter means the furnishing of water or electricity, where more than one residential unit is served through a single meter and trash disposal services.
“Overdue” as used in this chapter means that payment for an essential public utility service was not made when payment was due, and said payment is defined to be “due” five days after the placement of the billing for such service in the United States mail. The time periods stated hereafter shall be calculated from said “due” date.
SECTION HISTORY
Chapter 8 added by Ord. No. 162,383, Eff. 7-23-87.
(a) The procedures of this chapter provide an alternative means of securing and/or obtaining payment for the costs of providing essential public utilities services to residential real properties. Nothing herein shall preclude a department using other methods of securing the payment or obtaining payment for such services, including any other lawful method of placing liens on real property, civil suit and or discontinuance of service.
(b) If any portion of this chapter is found to be invalid or unconstitutional, whether on its face or as applied, such invalidity or inapplicability shall not affect the remaining portions of this chapter or applicability to other circumstances or persons, it being the intention of the City Council that this chapter be construed and applied to the extent constitutionally permissible notwithstanding it is not fully enforceable.
SECTION HISTORY
Chapter 8 added by Ord. No. 162,383, Eff. 7-23-87.
(a) The cost of providing an essential public utility service may be assessed upon the benefiting real property only when it appears that the owner or other person in charge of the real property is unable or unwilling to make payments for such services within a reasonable time following the billing for such services. No assessment shall be levied unless, at the time of application for assessment, payment for the essential public utility service for the property is more than seventy five (75) days overdue, whether or not the present customer of record was the owner during all or any portion of said period. Except as provided elsewhere, said assessment lien shall not be made more than six months after the application for assessment was filed. If an assessment was levied upon a real property in the previous year, so that the cost of essential public utility service has been paid through collection of assessments on the property tax bill, an application for assessment may be made notwithstanding that delinquencies did not exist during the previous year.
(b) No assessment lien shall be levied more than six months after the application for assessment was filed, unless the property is the subject of litigation in State or Federal Court.
(c) The City shall mail to the owner or owners of record at their respective address as shown on the last equalized tax roll, as well as any lenders of record at their respective last known address, of the property to be assessed by registered mail return receipt requested, a copy of the application for assessment within 45 days after said application for assessment was filed. Failure to receive said notice does not invalidate the herein proceedings.
(d) The application for assessment shall contain:
(1) A resolution of the governing board of the department providing the essential public utility service requesting that the City Council of the City of Los Angeles levy assessments upon real properties to pay for service provided and to be provided to real properties.
(2) A statement (i) that payments are or have been overdue as set forth in Subsection (a) of this Section; (ii) the address, legal description and assessor’s parcel number of the real properties proposed to be assessed; (iii) the names of the owner or owners, and their respective addresses as shown on the last equalized assessment roll of the County of Los Angeles; (iv) the names of the recorded lenders at their respective last known addresses; (v) the names of the persons and their respective addresses who were last billed for the public utility service; (vi) an accounting documenting the delinquencies prior to the date of application and the payments and dates of payments made on the account which justifies the application for assessment for each real property; (vii) the amount of past due billings, including all taxes, surcharges, fees, interest and charges thereon, at the time of application; (viii) the estimated total billings for the utility service, including all taxes, surcharges, fees and charges thereon, and including interest which will accrue until payment, during the period of the fiscal year after the date of filing the application, less any amounts not expended from previously made assessments; (ix) the estimated total billings for the utility service, including all taxes, surcharges, fees and charges thereon and including the net amount of interest which will accrue until payment during the next fiscal year, and (x) an estimate of the reasonable additional cost to the department to make the application for the assessment and collect the assessment, which reasonable cost will be included in the amount of the assessment.
(e) Said application for assessment shall be filed with the City Clerk of the City of Los Angeles and the County Recorder of Los Angeles County within 45 days after the property was more than 75 days overdue. Said application may be for assessments to more than one property. When received, the City Clerk shall forward the applications for assessment to the City Engineer. The City Engineer shall advise the City Council of the making of an application.
(f) The City Engineer shall cause the application to be noted on the records utilized in preparing the City Engineer’s report for the Report of Residential Property Records and Pending and Recorded Liens issued pursuant to Division D of Chapter 9 of Article 6 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code, commencing with Section 96.300.
(g) The City Engineer shall process said application for assessment received as follows:
(1) Estimate the total amount of proposed assessment for the department making the applications, including all of the items listed in Subsection (b)(2) of this section and including any estimated costs to the City in giving notice, holding hearings, and collecting and distributing the assessment when it is paid.
(2) Prepare an Assessment Roll listing:
(i) Each property to be assessed by address and by legal description;
(ii) The name of the owner or owners and the addresses as shown on the last Equalized Assessment Roll, and the names and the addresses of the persons last billed for the utility service, as such names and addresses have been furnished by the department making the application for assessment; and
(iii) The amount of each proposed assessment and the department and utility service for which it is proposed to be levied.
(h) At the request of the City Engineer, the City Attorney is hereby authorized and directed to prepare a draft of an ordinance declaring the Council’s intention to levy assessments pursuant to this chapter and to forward the draft of ordinance to the City Engineer for transmittal with the assessment roll to the City Council.
(i) If the City Council in its sole discretion determines to do so, the Council may adopt the ordinance and declare its intention to levy assessments for past due billings for essential utility services and future billings for essential utility services and setting a time, date and place of hearing. The ordinance shall provide that an initial hearing shall be held before a hearing officer or officers designated by the Board of Public Works and that all persons desiring to protest the assessment before the City Council must, prior thereto, appear before the hearing officer or officers.
SECTION HISTORY
Chapter 8 added by Ord. No. 162,383, Eff. 7-23-87.
Amended by: Subsecs. (d), (e), and (g), Ord. No. 165,518, Eff. 4-1-90; Subsec. (a) amended, Subsecs. (b) through (g) relettered (d) through (i), new Subsecs. (b) and (c) added, Subsecs. (d), (e) and first paragraph Subsec. (g) amended, Ord. No. 170,164, Eff. 1-19-95.
(a) Notice of the time, date and place of hearing before the City Council shall be given by the City Engineer as follows, with all of said notices being mailed and published no less than 15 days prior to the date of hearing. If the ordinance provides that there must be an appearance before a hearing officer, hearing commission, or committee of the City Council before protest may be made to the Council, the mailing and notice must be completed prior to 10 days before the earliest date for such appearance.
(b) The notice shall be mailed by first class mail to each owner and, if different from the owner, to each person last billed for utility services as their names and addresses were furnished to the City Engineer by the department making the application, as well as to each lender of record, at their last known address. It shall also state the legal description and address of the property to be assessed, as furnished to the City Engineer, the amount proposed to be assessed, including all costs and expenses of the department furnishing utility services and costs and expenses of making the assessment, that it is proposed to add the assessment to the next county tax bill, and shall also set forth the time, date and place of hearings as well as a short explanation of the hearing procedure. The notice shall also contain one or more telephone numbers of the department which made the application for assessment and a telephone number in the office of the City Engineer, at which information regarding the billings, proposed assessments, or procedures be obtained.
(c) The City Engineer shall keep a record of the notices, the persons to whom such notices were mailed, the date of mailing, and the person responsible for the mailing. A declaration by the person responsible for such mailing that it was made shall be sufficient evidence that notice was given. Failure of an addressee to receive such notice shall not invalidate a good faith attempt to give actual notice of the proposed assessment.
SECTION HISTORY
Chapter 8 added by Ord. No. 162,383, Eff 7-23-87.
Amended by: Subsec. (b), Ord. No. 170,164, Eff. 1-19-95; Subsecs. (a) and (c), Ord. No. 181,595, Eff. 4-10-11.
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