SOME EFFECTS ON FREEHOLDERS.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11339, 31 July 1902, Page 2

SOME EFFECTS ON FREEHOLDERS.

The fa-owing table shows how signally the new system of ratling «- St - Albans has failed to shift the burden to the shoulders of th- wealthier freeholders. The great majority of these hate found their rates decreased, or have suffered trifling increases altogether disproportionate to the doublings and treblings'whk_ have taken place in the rates of numbers of poor residents. The properties referred to in the following figures belong, without exception, to people who are, at least comparatively, well-to-do. PAPANUI BOAD. Rates under former Rates onder new System. System. £ s. d. £ «. d. - 591 4 4 7 10 12 9 614 2 16 10 10 15 8 2 29 3 9 30' 1 0 26 0 0 22 2 0 33 2 2 27 10 9 36 3 7 38 18 3 40 7 5 28 11 II 68 11 6 61 19 1 CHAPEL STREET. Rates under former Rates under new System. System. £ s. d. £ s- d. 7 3 2 6 010 12 19 3 9 4 9 On the North Belt last year's rate ot £23 18s 6d, in one case, has been reduced to £14 7« lid. An hotelkeeper pays £11 9s Id, as against £16 8s 7d under the former system. A well-to-do freeholder in Innes' road pays £18 Is 6d, showing only a slight increase on bis former rate of £17 ißs sd. In Boundary Road one rat-s of £10 14s 3d has been reduced! to £d 7s 9d. The following figures show tli« increases which have taken place in the case of freeholders in the farming district: —Property in Irenes' road, last year £3 19s 6d, this fear £8 4s lOd; property in Toon's Road, last year £6 Is lOd, this year £10 6s, property in Shcrlev Road, last year £16 Os 3d, this year £30" 14s 6d. Mr H. R. Richards paid £7 rates last year on a section of four acres facing Colombo street, and under the new system pays £16. For another block of land he paid £28 until the rating on unimproved values came into force, and' now it costs him £45. Most of tlhe Church Property land in North street, Colombo street, and Calc— lonian Road, is potentially freehold, having been taken with a purchasing clause. These properties have been badly affected. Tha whole question of rating is complicated by the extraordinary anomalies of valuation in the borough.