The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1931. UNIMPROVED VALUES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 69, 23 March 1931, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1931. UNIMPROVED VALUES.

For Me cauae ffta£ lacfc* a««tatqHce, For ffte wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that u>e can do.

The question of rating on unimproved values is to come before a large section of the ratepayers of Auckland once more during the current week. Polls to decide whether the districts shall revert to the old system of capital value are to be held to-morrow at Otahuhu and at Mount Roskill on Saturday, and a great deal of public interest naturally attaches to the result. At Otahuhu, rating on unimproved values has been in force for 16 years, and there is evidently a strong feeling against it; while in Mount Roskill, where the new system was introduced only three years ago, there seems to have been no difficulty in securing the statutory number of signatures to the requisition for a poll. Within the past half-year, three of the suburban districts contiguous to Auckland —Mount Albert, Glen Eden, and Papatoetoe —have reverted to rating on capital value, and, if we are to judge by this evidence, a very distinct reaction against rating on unimproved values is manifesting itself in and around Auckland at the present time.

The reason for this revulsion of public feeling against rating on unimproved values, even in those districts which have made the experiment, is easy to understand, in view of existing financial and commercial conditions. Admittedly, when the landowner under this system finds the burden of rates pressing heavily on him, he has two remedies at his disposal. He can improve the land by building or other forms of capital expenditure, or he .'an sell it to someone who is prepared to take these- risks. But for some time past commercial and industrial conditions in and about Auckland have been such that building is no longer a profitable investment; in fact it is notorious that building here, except for residential purposes, is now virtually at a standstill. As to the other remedy, for the same reasons, the sale of land —especially of land heavily burdened with rates —is almost impossible just now; in fact, some suburban land subject to rating on unimproved values could hardly be given away. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising to find that, as Ave have pointed out, three suburban districts have recently reverted to the old system, and that two more are about to reconsider their decision.

The supporters of this rating system no doubt maintain that the present circumstances are exceptional and probably temporary, and that they should not be urged against a form of public finance which confers permanent material benefits on the whole community. But this way of looking at the case implies that the system of rating advocated so enthusiastically in certain quarters is sound in principle, and this is seriously open to question. In normal times, the effect of such a method of rating is to induce or compel all holders of vacant land within the area affected to cut it up for building. The inevitable result is the systematic destruction of gardens and the loss of " breathing spaces," with grave injury to the amenities of social and civic life. When the system was first applied in Wellington these consequences were predicted in detail by Sir Robert Stout, and the sequel amply justified his warning. But in suburban areas the result may be even more disastrous. For the smallholder, who has kept himself going with the help of a poultry-run or vegetable garden or orchard, to supply the local market, finds himself penalised by an impost that may at once compel him to surrender this source of income altogether, or to submit to a ruinous levy. It ' needs very little knoAvledge of the suburban areas adjacent to Auckland to enable our readers to supply many illustrations of this sort for themselves. As a matter of fact, rating on unimproved values can be justified only as a last expedient to force land out of the hands of speculators holding vacant land and waiting for a rise in priee due to the progress of the community around them. But it is hardly necessary to show that such speculative holding of land is virtually nonexistent in and around Auckland to-day, and under existing conditions rating on unimproved values is to the last degree impolitic and inequitable.