City Rates.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19719, 9 September 1929, Page 8

City Rates.

The City rate demands for the current year have been issued, and owners of property now know the worst. Local rating was complicated this year by the recent revaluation of the City, the effect of which was to increase the total capital value from £23,521,000 to £28,516.000, and the unimproved value from £8,894,000 to £12,382,000. Capital valuations accordingly showed an increase o£ 33.98 per cent, and unimproved valuations an increase of 30.90 per cent. Many objections were lodged against the new valuations, and in contemplation of ft reduction by the Assessment Court, to sit this month, the City Council allowed a two and a half per cent, margin for such possible reductions, amounting to £309,573, and decided to strike the new rate on the reduced valuation of £12,073.000. Should the objections not be sustained that margin will still be available for rating: and the effect will be to increase the total sum taken from the ratepayers. With such a large addition to the total valuations it was only to be pxpected that the actual rate imposed should be less than that previously levied on lower valuations; and the point that interested the ratepayers was, how much in actual cash was to be collected this year as compared with laat. They were not left lone in doubt; and the position is that the total rate levy has increased by £30,000, from £322.000 to £352,000. Approximately two-thirds of this increased levy goes to the City Council and one-third to other local rating authorities, for whom the Council acts i as collector, such as the Hospital Board, Drainage Board, and Waimakariri River Trust. The Council's general rate total has advanced from £125,000 to £147,000, and the water rue from £16,000 to £26,000. The relief in special rates that follows the extinguishing of the antecedent liability is more than balanced by the

larger levies imposed in other directions. Had it not been for that relief.

the total rate levy would have been increased by over £.10,000; and it is certainly discouraging to ratepayers to find that the annual levies continue to advance, no matter what substantial special reliefs are afforded from time to time, as certain liabilities end. The increase in the water rate was due partly to the cost of making refunds to certain consumers in the new reticulation areas who originally paid for their own water connexions, and partly to the cost of enlarging the headworks to provide a high-pressure supply for the new reticulations, the latter really being a capital expenditure provided by revenue. The effect of the new valuations will be closely scrutinised by ratepayers. The increase is of course not spread evenly over the whole City area but is most marked in districts, chiefly in the more central part of the City, where intenser development is proceeding. It was calculated in Wellington recently, after the new rates were levied on the new valuations, that the variation in the rates claimed was not proportioned to the actual increase in the value of a holdim,' as presented in the revaluation but was based or the percentage of difference between the old and the neAV valuations. The same principle will doubtless operate here; but it is possible to test it only by particular cases reported, and some have .already been mentioned. On a property the unimproved valuation of which advanced from £10,275 to £13,700 the rates increased from £294 lis 7d to £3OB 15s 2d; on another property, which advanced from £4OO to £6OO, the rates increased from £l3 7s 8d to £l6 9s 2d; and on another property, which advanced from £525 to £530, the rates fell from £l4 4s 7d to £l2 4s 9d. It does not therefore follow that a moderaie increase in any valuation will mean an increase in rates, although a substantial increase will undoubtedly have this effect. Where valuations are unchanged, principally in the suburban districts, the general rating will be much reduced and such increases as are recorded will be caused by some additional special loan liability such as water supply or drainage. Areas in the City exempted from rating show no tendency to decline; and according to the latest return the capital value of such exempted properties totals £2,500,000 and the unimproved value £1,200,000. Crown lands, schools, churches, and Sunday schools account for the bulk of this total. These exemptions are not all equally justified; and to a very large extent, notably in the case of Government properties, they impose an unfair burden upon the ordinary ratepayer.