478 PARKS 



to pay the realtor a fat sum for the property." In short, investors may be 

 paying double for the privilege of having the improvement, (b) Extreme 

 care must be taken in estimating the cost of an improvement. If the cost 

 has been estimated too low and the rate of assessment fixed the resulting 

 efforts of improvement may represent something that is neither attractive 

 nor very useful and the district will be harmed more than benefited, (c) 

 This plan might possibly be attempted in some neighborhoods where the 

 resulting benefits to property values would in no way compensate for the 

 outlay. In very congested sections of cities this would very likely always 

 be the case, (d) The unlimited use of this method might result in so many 

 projects of this character being carried through that the general revenues of 

 the park department for operation and maintenance would be insufficient to 

 properly care for these additional areas unless an additional maintenance 

 and operation appropriation or tax could be secured. Where the park depart- 

 ment controls the granting of petitions for the creation of assessment districts 

 it can of course more or less harmonize its probable future revenues with 

 the probable demand for increased operation and maintenance costs. 



In general, levying of special assessments should be encouraged or 

 permitted only in case there is a clear assurance that "special benefits are 

 equal to or greater than the proposed assessments." These benefits are of 

 two classes tangible and intangible. A tangible benefit may be defined 

 as a "measurable rise in real estate values unmistakably due to the project 

 in question." Occasionally it happens that the people living in some given 

 neighborhood may desire to secure a given piece of property and improve 

 it an action which in itself would not cause any appreciable increase in 

 property values but solely because they desire it for aesthetic reasons or 

 to prevent its use for purposes they deem undesirable. This may be defined 

 as an intangible value, although in the latter case it may be a negative- 

 positive value. It is nearly always true, no doubt, that people who are 

 willing to assess themselves for any of the types of active recreation prop- 

 erties previously mentioned may, perhaps, be thinking more of having a 

 safe place for their children to play, and for good opportunities close at 

 home for the recreation of their young people and of themselves than they 

 are about the possible increase to the value of their property. All these 

 are more or less intangible values in contradistinction to increase in mone- 

 tary values of property and are often the underlying motive for the willing- 

 ness of people to assess themselves for properties of this character. 



Examples of the application of the special assessment method of financing 

 acquisition and improvements of properties. This method has been used very 

 extensively in acquiring and improving neighborhood playfield-park types 



