A.  In any parish adjoining Lake Maurepas or Lake Pontchartrain, in order to construct and finance the projects provided for in La. Rev. Stat. 38:1674.1, the board of commissioners of any drainage district created under the provisions of this Chapter shall employ a competent engineer or firm of engineers to prepare a drainage report setting forth the area to be drained, the general plan of drainage, the total estimated cost of the project as well as the estimated annual cost of operating and maintaining such project and a proposed plan for financing such costs.  

B.  The engineering report shall designate the portion or portions of the drainage area which are high lands and undrained lands.  Highlands shall mean any land which is drained by gravity or other means sufficient to support residential, commercial and industrial construction or inhabitation and the natural drainage from which land flows into other portions of the drainage area.  High lands shall not include lands already drained that do not flow into the drainage area.  Undrained lands shall mean any land which is subject to overflow and not already drained sufficiently to support residential, commercial and industrial construction or inhabitation.  

C.  After receiving and approving the engineering report, the board of commissioners shall adopt a resolution giving notice of its intention to construct such project and shall describe the portion of the district, if less than the entire district, to be drained, benefited, and assessed which shall be referred to as the assessment area.  Said resolution shall also give notice of the intention of the board to levy local or special assessments not exceeding a specified sum per acre or square foot on each assessable lot or parcel of real estate in the assessment area to pay all or part of the project cost with separate maximum assessment costs being specified for high lands and undrained lands.  The resolution containing the notice of intention shall be published once a week for three consecutive weeks in a newspaper published within the district, or, if there be none, in some newspaper published in the parish wherein the district is located.  The board of commissioners shall set forth therein the date, hour and place of a hearing at which it will proceed in open session to hear any and all objections to the proposed improvements and the manner of payment therefor; and after hearing and passing on such objections, proceed, if it so determines, to order such improvements constructed in the manner hereinafter provided.  

D.  The total of all such local or special assessments shall represent the total cost to be assessed against the real property in the assessment area and said local or special assessments shall be calculated or prorated equally against each acre or square foot of property in the assessment area except that the assessment per acre or per square foot in the high lands shall be in an amount equal to twenty percent of the assessment per acre or per square foot of undrained lands in the assessment area.  In order to accomplish this procedure, the local or special assessment per acre or per square foot in the undrained lands portion shall be equal to an amount determined by dividing the total project cost by the sum of the acres or square footage in the undrained lands portion plus one-fifth of the acres or square footage of the high lands portion.  The assessment provided for in this Section against the high lands in the assessment area shall not exceed the sum of one hundred dollars per acre per year or a proportionate maximum assessment per square foot per year.  

E.  The board shall not proceed with the levying of any local or special assessments or the construction of the proposed improvements if, at or prior to the public hearing, any written objections are filed to the proposed improvements and signed by the owner on any property included within the district, which ownership shall be determined by the conveyance records of the parish.  The property of any landowner who objects shall be excluded from the proposed assessment area and the property of such landowner shall not be subject to the finance charges and drainage assessments provided for herein.  

F.  The provisions of this Section shall be in addition to and shall not repeal, modify, or limit the applicability of any of the other provisions of this Part which apply to parishes adjoining Lake Maurepas or Lake Pontchartrain.  

Added by Acts 1979, No. 712, §1, eff. July 20, 1979.