MOUNT EDEN VALUATIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 70, 23 March 1934, Page 6

MOUNT EDEN VALUATIONS.

Your report of the proceedings of the Mount Eden Assessment Court discloses a most extraordinary position. On the one hand we have a valuer who admits that on the advice of the Mayor he made mo alterations in the valuations, and on the other hand some 1400 ratepayers who considered some alteration is necessary. We get a foretaste of the mind of the Court in the case of two or three assessments, indicating that the valuer is wrong and the ratepayers are right, by the granting of reductions. If these are typical, then we may expect the valuations of a very considerable proportion of the ratable properties in the borough to be rcduced. As a ratepayer who did not lodge an objection, but who relied upon the assessment made as equitable if high, I wish to register an emphatic protest against being called upon to shoulder an unfair proportion of the rate burden. The whole question of rate responsibility rests not on the amount of rates struck, but upon an equitable value and assessment of the properties carrying the rates. Thus if the rate values of 1400 properties are altered downwards, a most unfair position is sot up, and should, if at all possible, not he tolerated by the Assessment Court. The obvious way out of tjie difficulty .is to order a of the whole borough by another valuer and then adjust the rates to meet the necessities of the case. This has been done lately in other towns in New Zealand and thus relieved the inequitable condition crcated. VALLEY ROAD.