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The Council may grant permission to any individual, company, or corporation to construct and operate a public utility in the streets and public grounds of the City, subject to the provisions of statute requiring consents of abutting owners, and subject also to the provisions of this Charter. The ordinance shall prescribe the kind and quality of service or product to be furnished, the rate or rates to be charged therefor, the manner in which the streets and public grounds shall be used and occupied, and any other terms and conditions conducive to the public interest.
At any time prior to the termination thereof any previous grant of a franchise for the construction or operation of a public utility, may be renewed by ordinance to the original grantee or to the assignee in possession thereof, or to such person or corporation as may be designated in writing to the Mayor of the City by such grantee or assignee, upon any terms conducive to the public interest; provided said utility at the time of said renewal is still being operated; and provided further that said renewal shall not be effective until approved or granted by a majority vote of the electors in accordance with the provisions of this Charter.
If the utility whose franchise is renewed, is a street railway, and if during one year prior to said renewal, a street railway has been operated upon such streets or parts thereof as will be occupied under such renewal, it shall not be necessary to obtain the consent of the owners of property abutting thereon.
No right to construct, maintain or operate any public utility in the City of Toledo shall be exclusive, nor shall it be granted for a longer period than twenty-five (25) years; provided, however, franchises for the use of the streets for public transportation purposes may provide for the regulation or prevention of competition in parts of the City defined and limited by such franchise.
All such grants and renewals thereof shall reserve to the City the right to terminate the same, and to purchase or lease all the property of the utility in the streets and highways in the City and elsewhere, used in or useful for the operation of the utility, at a price fixed in the ordinance, or to be fixed in the manner provided by the ordinance making the grant or renewal of the grant. Nothing in such ordinance shall prevent the City from acquiring the property of any such utility by condemnation proceedings or in any other lawful mode; but all such methods of acquisition shall be alternative to the power to purchase, reserved in the grant or renewal as hereinbefore provided. Upon the acquisition by the City of the property of any utility, by purchase, condemnation, or otherwise, all grants or renewals shall at once terminate.
No ordinance making such grant or renewal shall be valid unless it shall expressly provide therein that the price to be paid by the City for the property that may be acquired by it from such utility, by purchase, condemnation or otherwise, shall exclude all value of such grant or renewal.
The Council may grant to any individual, company, or corporation operating a public utility, the right to extend the appliance and service of such utility. All such extensions shall become a part of the aggregate property of the utility by virtue of the ordinance providing for its construction and operation, and shall thereafter be subject to all the terms, conditions, and provisions of the original grant. The right to use and maintain any such extension shall expire with the original grant of the utility to which the extension was made or any renewal thereof.
The Council at all times shall control the distribution of space, in, over, under, or across all streets or public grounds occupied by public utility fixtures. All rights granted for the construction and operation of public utilities shall be subject to the continuing right of the Council to require such reconstruction, relocation, change, or discontinuance of the appliances used by the utility in the streets, alleys, avenues and highways of the City, as in the opinion of the Council shall be necessary in the public interest.
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