Chapter 14.38 REGULATIONS GENERALLY

Any one or more of the following may be included in any proceedings pursuant to this article:

A. Establishment, opening, extension, widening or altering of any street, alley, highway or sidewalk;

B. Grading, paving, curbing, macadamizing, or otherwise improving of the whole or any part of any public street, alley, highway or sidewalk;

C. Storm drainage facilities;

D. Sanitary sewerage facilities;

E. Street lighting facilities;

F. Water facilities for domestic or industrial water supply, or both, and for fire protection;

G. Installation of underground utility facilities, including gas, electric and telephone, and the removal, relocation, replacement, or reconstruction of any overhead utility facilities required to be placed underground;

H. Establishment, extension, construction of public off-street parking facilities, pedestrian malls, parks, playgrounds, beach areas, or other public recreational areas and facilities;

I. Planting of trees, shrubs, or other ornamental vegetation;

J. Breakwaters, levees, bulkheads, groins, and walls of rock or other material to protect the streets, places, public ways and other property from overflow by water, or to prevent beach erosion or to promote accretion to beaches;

K. Compaction of land, change of grade or contours, construction of caissons, retaining walls, drains and other structures suitable for the purpose of stabilizing land;

L. Retaining walls, embankments, culverts, bridges, tunnels, buildings and any other structures or facilities necessary or suitable in connection with any of the work mentioned in this section;

M. Work deemed necessary or convenient to improve any of the foregoing to an extent exceeding maintenance or repair thereof;

N. All other work auxiliary to any mentioned in this section, which may be required to carry out the same. (Ord. 801 § 1 (part), 1974: prior code § 25-1.4)

Whenever any public land, or any land by law exempted from assessments of the character provided for in this article, is within any improvement district, the council shall, without assessing such public or exempted land for any part of the cost of such improvements, by general ordinance appropriate and pay toward such improvements out of general revenues the portion of the costs thereof which would otherwise be assessable against the public or exempted land, either in a lump sum, or, at the election of the council, in such equal installments with such interest thereon as the council shall determine. In the event, however, any part or parts of such exempt lands, except public lands, may be required for right-of-way, easement, or other purposes for the improvements within such improvement district, the value thereof shall be chargeable to the improvement district, and upon acquisition the owner shall be compensated therefor in the following manner:

A. Where the value of the part taken together with any severance damages exceeds the portion of the cost of the improvements which would otherwise be assessable against the exempt land, the county shall pay the difference to the owner or owners;

B. Where such value is less than the portion of the cost of the improvements which would otherwise be assessable against the exempt land, the value of the land shall be deducted from said portion of the cost and the county shall pay the balance thereof in the manner provided in this section. (Ord. 801 § 1 (part), 1974: prior code § 25-1.5)

Where any part of the cost is to be paid by the county pursuant to Section 14.38.020, the council shall have the same right of approval, including the right to join in petitions filed pursuant to Section 14.40.020, or protest as though the county were the private owner of the public or exempted lands so involved. As to such expenditure for public and exempt lands, the county shall be entitled to be reimbursed out of state revenues as provided by Section 67-8 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes, as follows: by appropriations to be made from time to time by the Legislature to the extent of fifty percent of all assessments regularly apportioned against property owned by persons, corporations, or entities which are part of any improvement district and are exempted by law from the payment of such assessments; and the full amount of assessments regularly apportioned against public lands which are a part of any improvement district, which public lands are owned in fee simple by the United States, or by the state, and which are not set aside for schools maintained by the county, or for county parks, or for other county purposes or for street areas or frontages; provided, that in case any land exempted by law from assessments as herein provided, other than public land, or any part thereof, is sold or leased after the establishment of an improvement district, the grantee in the one case, and the lessor in the other, shall assume the payment of assessments from the date of such sale or lease in the same manner as if the property had not been exempted from assessments and as if assessments apportionable against the property had been paid in installments to such date of sale or lease; and all payments received from such grantee or lessor, as the case may be, shall be paid into the permanent improvement fund. Nothing in this section shall be taken to prejudice any rights of the state to reimbursement from the United States for assessments assumed in this chapter by the state, but the latter shall be subrogated to the rights of the county on such assessments so assumed. (Ord. 801 § 1 (part), 1974: prior code § 25-1.5.1)

Notwithstanding Sections 14.38.020 and 14.38.030 or any other law to the contrary, any society, association or corporation engaged in religious, charitable, educational, scientific, literary, or other benevolent purposes whose land is exempt by law from assessment for improvements may file or join others in filing a petition for an improvement district and shall, by such filing or adjoining to file, be deemed to have waived exemption from assessment for improvements, and its lands within the improvement district shall be assessed for improvements without contribution from the county or the state. (Ord. 801 § 1 (part), 1974: prior code § 25-1.5.2)

To expedite the conduct of proceedings and the making of any acquisition or improvement authorized by this article the director of finance, with the approval of the council, may at any time transfer into a special fund designated by the name of the improvement proceeding, out of any available fund, such sums as he deems necessary. Sums so transferred shall be a loan to the special fund, and shall be repaid out of the proceeds of the assessments and/or bonds provided for in this article. (Ord. 801 § 1 (part), 1974: prior code § 25-1.6)

Notwithstanding any other provision in this article, contributions toward the cost of any improvement made under this article may be used from any funds made available for that purpose by any local, state or national agency or authority. If any proposed special improvement includes the construction or improvement of a water system or facilities for water supply or distribution, the department of water supply may, but such requirement is not mandatory, assume and contribute from its funds available for such purpose all or a portion of the cost of engineering and inspection and not to exceed thirty-three and one-third percent of the total cost of the construction or improvement of such water system or facilities for water supply or distribution. (Ord. 801 § 1 (part), 1974: prior code § 25-1.7)

At any time or times prior to levy of the assessment, upon the recommendation of the mayor, the council may provide for a contribution or contributions by county of part of the costs and expenses of the improvement. Such contributions may be made concurrently with the making of the improvement, or at any time before or after creation of the improvement district; it may be provided by ordinance that for a period specified in the ordinance, but not exceeding the terms of bonds to be issued, the county will contribute, from any sources of revenue not otherwise prohibited by law, any specified amount, portion or percentage of such revenues for the purpose of application of such amount, portion or percentage of such revenues as a credit upon the levied assessments. The share of such credit for each levied assessment shall bear the same relation to the total credit as the relation between the amount of each such levied assessment and the total amount of all such levied assessments. Such credit may be accumulated until it is sufficient to warrant distribution thereof to the owners of the properties upon which assessments were levied. For such purposes, as to assessments paid during the thirty-day period provided in Section 14.50.060 or any unpaid assessments paid in advance pursuant to Section 14.50.130, the owners shall be deemed to be the persons who made such payments, and their respective shares of such credit shall be distributed to them by cash payment thereof; and as to all other assessments, the owners shall be deemed to be the persons who own the property at the time or times of distribution or distributions of such credit, and their respective shares of such credit shall be distributed to them by payment thereof into the bond account of the special fund referred to in Section 14.50.230 with equivalent reduction in the amounts of their next ensuing unpaid assessment installments payable with respect to the properties owned by them, respectively. Such periodic contribution shall not constitute an indebtedness or liability of the county, and shall be made from sources other than ad valorem taxes on real property. (Ord. 801 § 1 (part), 1974: prior code § 25-1.7.1)

Proceeds of bonds issued for any improvement district pursuant to the provisions of this article shall not be invested, and none of the provisions of this article shall be construed as requiring investment of such proceeds, in securities or other obligations in such a manner as would constitute the bonds “arbitrage bonds” within the meaning of Section 103(d) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 and temporary, proposed, or final regulations thereunder. In the event and to the extent that it is necessary to do so to comply with the provisions of this section, such proceeds and proceeds of investments thereof shall be used for one or the other of the purposes specified in subdivisions 1 and 2 of subsection A of Section 14.52.120, notwithstanding that all of such bonds, and interest thereon, have not yet been paid. (Ord. 827 § 1(a), 1975: Ord. 801 § 1 (part), 1974: prior code § 25-1.12)

All petitions, reports, protests or other documents to be filed with the mayor, the council or the county clerk pursuant to this article shall be received by the county clerk and he shall endorse thereon the date of filing and safely keep same, together with duly certified copies of all ordinances and resolutions enacted and adopted by the council pursuant to this article, in separate files, by improvement districts. Such files for any improvement district shall not be disposed of until all assessments levied and all bonds issued with respect to such improvement district have been fully paid. (Ord. 801 § 1 (part), 1974: prior code § 25-1.10)