A Type A general-law municipality may improve a street or alley, but it must assess abutting land for two-thirds of the cost and the municipality must pay the rest, with a special rule for street intersections.
Sec. 311.095. ASSESSMENT FOR STREET IMPROVEMENT IN TYPE A GENERAL-LAW MUNICIPALITY. (a) The governing body of a Type A general-law municipality, by a two-thirds vote of the aldermen present, may improve a street or alley under this section. (b) The governing body shall assess the land abutting the street or alley improved under this section for two-thirds of the cost of the improvement. The municipality shall pay the other one-third of the cost. The municipality shall pay the entire cost of an improvement at the intersection of streets. (c) The landowner shall pay the assessment in not fewer than five equal annual payments. A collected assessment shall be appropriated for the payment of the bonds issued to finance the cost of the improvement. (d) After the governing body determines to make an improvement, the governing body shall require the municipal engineer, another municipal officer, or a committee of three aldermen to prepare a report. The report must: (1) contain an estimate of the cost of the improvement; (2) list each lot or part of a lot abutting the street or alley to be improved and list the number and size of the lot, the number of the block in which the lot is located, the owner of the lot or a statement that the owner is unknown, and other information required by the governing body; and (3) state, opposite a lot's listing, one-third the estimated cost of the improvement of the street or alley abutting the lot. (e) On the acceptance and approval of the report, the governing body shall impose the assessment as taxes. After the assessment is imposed, the individual or committee that prepared the report shall give, as may be required by ordinance, notice of the time in which the payment of the assessment is due and shall begin to collect the payment. (f) The assessment is a lien on the land until it is paid. After an assessment on the land becomes delinquent, the individual or committee that prepared the report on the assessments may seize any part of the land that is sufficient to pay the assessment. The individual or committee shall sell the seized land if the assessment is not paid before the day of the sale. The municipality shall give the same notice of the sale that is required to be given in other sales to collect delinquent taxes. The sale is subject to the same ordinance provisions that govern the name, circumstances, and conditions under which a sale of land may be made and the extent to which a sale may be made to collect delinquent taxes owed the municipality. The individual or committee shall execute a deed to the purchaser at the sale. The deed used in the sale is subject to another statute that governs a deed prepared by an assessor or collector of taxes for a general-law municipality. (g) The governing body may initiate a suit in the municipality's corporate name to recover from a landowner an assessment. (h) The governing body may adopt resolutions, ordinances, or regulations necessary to carry out the authority granted by this section. Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 165, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1995.