Improvement of street adjacent to stream or canal; assessment of property farthest from stream; petition of property owners

In all cases where a public thoroughfare, located within the limits of any municipality (the City of New Orleans excepted) having a population exceeding one thousand, or within the limits of any incorporated parish seat, is adjacent to or bordering upon, or, when not adjacent to or bordering upon, is so near, or in such proximity, to a stream or canal that the property between the side of the street nearest the stream or canal is insufficient in value to warrant the imposition of paving assessments under existing laws, and is worth less than the cost of its proportionate share of the paving proposed for the street, the governing authority of the municipality may pave, gravel, macadamize, resurface, repair, or otherwise improve the public thoroughfares, (or any part thereof, not less than one block or more in length) and may levy and collect special taxes or local assessments on the property abutting the thoroughfare, for the purpose of defraying the cost of the work, repair, or improvement, which special taxes and local assessments shall be levied entirely against the property abutting on the side of the street farthest from the bank of the stream or canal, provided, that the owners of not less than sixty per cent of the lineal front footage of the property abutting on the side of the stream farthest from the bank of the stream or canal shall petition for the improvement, in writing, and shall state in the petition that in their opinion the property lying between the side of the street next to the stream, and the bank of the stream or canal, is insufficient in value to warrant its assessments for the paving under existing laws. On petition of the same percentage of the property owners on the side of the street farthest from the bank of the stream or canal, the property on both sides of the street may be assessed as now provided by existing laws, and if the property between the public thoroughfare, and the stream or canal should not be bid in at sheriff's sale in foreclosure of the paving assessment for an amount sufficient to pay the assessment against it, then, the entire costs shall be paid by the owners of the property on the side of the street farthest from the stream, or canal; and, in that event, the municipality and its transferees, shall have a lien and privilege on the property on the side of the street farthest from the stream, or canal, to secure the cost of paving the street.