BOMBSHELL

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 150, 27 June 1931, Page 11

BOMBSHELL

STEEP RATE INCREASE. MOUNT. ALBERT'S POSITION. NEW COUNCIL'S DECISION. HOUSEHOLDERS CONCERNED. Householders of Mount Albert are greatly concerned at the action of the new Borough Council in deciding to increase the rates considerably in order to meet the extraordinary expenditure that has been incurred in the borough during past years. At a special meeting in.committee on Thursday rates for the current year were decided upon to meet the new system of gating on capital value. The original system of rating in the borough was on capital value, but four years ago, on a poll of ratepayers, it was changed to rating on unimproved values. Last year there was another poll and the borough changed back to capital value rating. For the • year 1927-S capital value rating was 2Ad in the £1. On a house valued at £82.5 that meant a rate of £8 11/11. The following year the same property under unimproved rating was valued at £225, and the rate struck was 71d, yielding £7 1/B—a decrease of £1 10/3. The next year under the same system the rate was increased to 9 4-sd, yielding £9 3/9, an increase on the previous year of £2 2/1. The current year's rates, which have now been struck, on the capital value, will be. 3 5-Sd in the £1, which on the same property valued at £825 will mean the payment by the owner of £13 1/3, an increase over last year of £2 17/6 and compared with 19289 of £5 19/7, a rise of over 00 per cent. A ratepayer who 'mrs an undivided block of land in the borough stated this morning that even with the proposed higher rate there would be some reduction as far- as his estate was concerned, owinc to capital value rating being imposed He had had to pay very heavily under unimproved rating, and no doubt there would be another petition to revert onco again to the unimproved value. The Mayor, Mr. W. A. Stilwell, declined to comment on the rating question this morning. "The matter is in committee until next Tuesday, he said.