Athens City Code

1. (1) A rights-of-way occupant shall, within three months from the date of notification, at its own expense, permanently relocate, protect, or modify any part of its facility when required by the city by reason of traffic safety, public safety, road construction, change of street grade, installation of water, stormwater, or sanitary pipes, traffic signal devices, or any other types of city improvement projects. The city manager may recommend such actions in order to prevent interference by the rights-of-way occupant's facilities with a present or future city use of the city's rights-of-way; or a capital improvement project funded and scheduled to be undertaken by the city; or an economic development project in which the city has an interest or investment. The city manager may also recommend such actions when the public health, safety and welfare require it; or when necessary to prevent interference with the safety and convenience of ordinary travel over the rights-of-way, both vehicular and pedestrian; or when above-ground equipment is located in such a manner as to create an obstruction to a driver's line of sight. The rights-of-way occupant may for due cause make application to the public works director for an extension to complete such relocation as required by this section.
2. (2) Failure by the rights-of-way occupant to relocate its facilities within five months from date of notification shall result in the rights-of-way occupant being assessed liquidated damages for each day of the delay. The daily amount of liquidated damages shall be determined by the liquidated damages contained in any construction contracts the city may have entered into in conjunction with infrastructure improvements that necessitate the need for the rights-of-way occupant to relocate its facilities. In those cases where the city is performing the infrastructure improvements with city forces, the amount of the daily liquidated damages shall be the average of the daily liquidated damages amounts found in all city contracts for the past two years, commencing with the date of notification referenced above. If the rights-of-way occupant fails to pay the city for the liquidated damages as charged, the total amount of liquidated damages (daily amount multiplied by the number of days delayed) shall be attached to the cost of any future permit the rights-of-way owner may apply for to install, extend or improve their facilities within the city's rights-of-way, and no permit shall be issued until the total costs are paid.

(Code 1995, § 16-218; Ord. No. 906, 2-18-2003)