§1659. Utility structures, authority to remove, relocation procedures

A. The authority shall have the power to require any public utility, railroad, or other public service corporation owning or operating any installations, structures, equipment, apparatus, appliances, or facilities in, upon, under, over, across, or along any ways on which the authority has the right to own, construct, operate, or maintain its mass transportation system and to remove or relocate such installation, structures, equipment, apparatus, appliances, or facilities from their locations. If the owner or operator thereof fails or refuses to remove or relocate them, the authority may proceed to do so. The authority may provide the necessary new locations, and for that purpose, the power of eminent domain as provided in Section 1661 of this Chapter may be exercised; however, the new locations shall not be in, on, or above a public way. The authority also may acquire the necessary new locations by purchase or otherwise. The authority shall reimburse the public utility, railroad, or other public service corporation for the cost of relocations, and the reimbursement shall be in the entire amount paid or incurred by the utility which is properly attributable thereto after deducting the cost of any increase in the service capacity of the new installations, structures, equipment, apparatus, appliances, or facilities, and any salvage value derived from the old installation, structures, equipment, apparatus, or appliances.

B. The authority shall have the power to prepare plans for and carry on a relocation program for the relocation of persons, including individuals, families, business concerns, nonprofit organizations, and others who are displaced by operations of the authority in carrying out a mass transportation project. The authority shall have the power to acquire by purchase, lease, gift or contract such personal and real property, improved and unimproved, and to make improvements thereon, as it deems reasonably necessary to carry out such relocation program, and to make relocation payments to or with respect to such persons, including the making of such payments financed, in whole or in part, by the federal government, and in accomplishing the foregoing, to provide in the same area, or in other areas generally not less desirable in regard to public utilities and public and commercial facilities and at rents or prices within the financial means of the displaced persons, a sufficient number of decent, safe, and sanitary dwellings available to those displaced persons and reasonably accessible to their respective places of employment. The authority shall have the power to apply for and receive grants, loans, and other financial assistance from the federal government, the state of Louisiana, or any local government within the metropolitan area for such relocation payments, including payments for the reasonable and necessary moving expenses and any actual direct losses of property, except good will or profit, resulting from displacement of such persons by the project.

Added by Acts 1979, No. 439, §1, eff. Aug. 1, 1979.