R. Lisle Baker (Suffolk) has published Using Special Assessments as a Tool for Smart Growth: Louisville’s New Metro Government as a Potential Example, 45 Brandeis L.J. 1 (2006).  Here is the Conclusion:

In the realm of shaping metropolitan growth, whether to save open space or help finance redevelopment, special assessments can offer some unique opportunities not available with other financing techniques. Special assessments are especially useful where the general benefit to the public may be insufficient to warrant the expenditure solely from general revenues. In such cases, the additional funds raised from a special assessment can justify matching general fund revenue and overcome some of the problems of relying on private contributions from benefited property owners because of the "free rider" problem. Unlike impact fees, which are designed to partially fund the costs imposed on a community at large by new land development, special assessments are explicitly tied to the benefit conferred upon the property owner assessed, not the cost imposed on the public. This may make it easier for a local legislative body, such as Louisville’s Metro Council, to approve these special assessments.

Special assessments are not a cure for all fiscal ills. However, they may be a growth management tool that, in the right circumstances, makes the difference in having a worthwhile public capital public improvement (such as securing new park land at the fringe or inducing new development in the urban core) from being undertaken at all. So, how might Louisville Metro or similarly situated municipalities best proceed? Note that the Newton and California experiences represent two different assessment modes. In the first case, a small class of beneficiaries (fifty-one lot owners, of whom sixteen were development sites under two condominium developments) paid a high amount, amortized over twenty years. In the case of the Santa Clara Open Space Authority, a large number of beneficiaries paid a small annual amount for an indefinite period of time. In the case of the Washington D.C. transit system, the development was financed through a special assessment on nearby commercial landowners would benefit from increased land values created by the station.

The point is that the nature of the improvement-and the constituency benefited by it-should be an important touchstone, rather than relying simply on the conventional model of a special assessment for a street, sidewalk or sewer, where all or part of the cost is simply allocated by front footage or similar method. That does not avoid the need for general taxation, and it is important to prevent special assessments from undoing the social compact that general property taxation provides. But where some important resources are at risk or need help, asking those who are most benefited by them to help pay the bill can, as in the Newton case, leverage complementary public and private investment, to the benefit of not only the affected property owners but also the region as a whole. If Louisville Metro government, and corresponding local governments in other states, are to succeed in managing their growth, they will need all the fiscal tools at their disposal to help shape their region’s future in a positive way. The special assessment can be one such tool.