A. Any board of county commissioners may adopt a resolution determining that any streets totally within a subdivided area approved by the county commission, outside the corporate limits of any municipality, and which the board determines to have such a prospective population density as to require extraordinary street maintenance shall be maintained in part at the expense of the owner of any property which abuts upon the streets. The resolution shall only be adopted after a public hearing, notice of which has been advertised in a newspaper of general circulation within the county for two consecutive weeks, the first such advertisement being at least ten days prior to the date of hearing. In the resolution, the board of county commissioners shall determine:

(1) the expense of maintaining the streets;

(2) the proportion of the expense to be borne by the property which abuts the streets;

(3) the charge to be assessed against each lineal foot of frontage of the abutting property which shall not exceed one-half of the average cost per lineal foot of county road maintenance for the prior fiscal year nor be less than one dollar ($1.00) for each assessment billing; and

(4) the assessment, on an equitable basis, of each parcel or tract within the subdivided area according to its proportionate share of the expense of maintaining the streets. As used in this paragraph, "equitable basis" includes an assessment based on a front-foot, improved or unimproved property, zone or area basis or an assessed valuation basis where each tract or parcel bears the same percentage of total costs as the percentage that the tract's or parcel's assessed value bears to the total assessed value of the property included in the improvement district.

B. The assessment for the expense of maintaining the streets shall be billed and collected by the county treasurer at the same time as the property taxes and shall become delinquent thirty days after the date of billing. All delinquent assessments shall be a lien against the tract or parcel of property abutting the street, and the lien shall be enforced as provided in Section 67-4-21 NMSA 1978.

C. As used in this section, the term "streets" shall include both improved and unimproved streets, roads, thoroughfares, curbs, divider strips and median strips or any combination of the foregoing.

History: 1953 Comp., § 55-3-24, enacted by Laws 1969, ch. 167, § 1; 1975, ch. 125, § 1; 2001, ch. 342, § 2.

The 2001 amendment, effective June 15, 2001, in Paragraph A(4), substituted "on an equitable basis, of each parcel or tract within the subdivided area" for "according to its frontage, of each tract, lot or parcel of abutting property", and added the current last sentence; and in Subsection B, substituted "67-4-21 NMSA 1978" for "55-3-25 NMSA 1953".

Am. Jur. 2d, A.L.R. and C.J.S. references. — 56 Am. Jur. 2d Municipal Corporations, Counties and Other Political Subdivisions § 581.

20 C.J.S. Counties § 233.