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4 <br />The following assessment issues are generally applicable to assessment projects: <br />all properties that can be served by the utilities financed by an assessment project <br />must be assessed on the same basis. For example, one property cannot be <br />assessed on the basis of acreage while another property is assessed on the basis <br />of front footage, and <br />the calculated amount of an assessment for a parcel is based solely on the <br />assessment basis and the characteristics of the property, The status or financial <br />circumstances of the property owner are immaterial except in the case of owners/ <br />properties that are statutorily exempt from such assessments (for example, <br />undeveloped land belonging to a railroad). <br />• the maximum period over which an assessment can be amortized or collected is ten <br />years.. For example, the collection of an assessment on a particular property can be <br />held in abeyance (perhaps until the property is sold), but the assessment must be <br />collected in full within the ten year period, and <br />• the full cost of the project in terms of construction, engineering, surveying, etc,, <br />costs is subject to the assessment calculation although any of these individual cost <br />centers may be deleted from the project cost calculations; and <br />• a property that has physical access, by virtue of frontage on a utility service line, to <br />utility service is subject to assessment, providing that extension of such utility <br />service to that property is not otherwise prohibited; and <br />• properties cannot be assessed for the cost of utility that is not directly accessible to <br />that property. <br />The following assessment issues are specifically applicable to a Buckhorn EDD <br />assessment project: <br />the properties within the Buckhorn EDD lying between the middle school property <br />and those properties immediately adjacent to the east side of Buckhorn Road lack <br />any means of direct access to sewer service by way of either the gravity portion of <br />the system along Buckhorn Road or to the pumping station at the Gravelly Hill <br />Middle School, These properties cannot be assessed sewer costs unless some <br />means of accessing sewer service can be provided. <br />Providing sewer service to the properties between the school site and Buckhorn <br />Road will ultimately require the extension of gravity sewer mains to the properties <br />from the Gravelly HiII pumping station. These mains would be routed along the <br />creeks and drainage channels that are located internal to the properties. The <br />County Attorney has indicated that if the County acquires sewer easements in the <br />locations necessary to extend sewer mains to the internal portions of the EDD, the <br />properties fronting on those easements may be subject to an assessment for the <br />prorated share of costs for the pumping station and force main, <br />