Sewer Loan Rates To Be Consolidated

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31062, 18 May 1966, Page 18

Sewer Loan Rates To Be Consolidated

One of the first local bodies in Christchurch to fix its rates for the current financial year will be the Drainage Board, which will meet next Tuesday for this purpose.

There will be more than general interest in the rates this year, because sewerage loan rates will be consolidated over the whole sewered area.

The policy of consolidation was adopted in 1957 and reviewed in 1959, when 1965 was chosen as the year for final consolidation, it being the year when the major part of the original loan debt of the No. 5 area matured.

The effect will be that rates will increase in the original sewered area, and decrease in the outer areas. In 1923, when the board began to sewer the area outside the inner city, consolidation of loan rates was proposed, but the inner-area ratepayers protested vigorously that they had almost completed paying for their reticulation and should not be called on to help to pa” for the outer suburbs, which were known as the No. 5 area. Since then the board’s boundaries have extended considerably, and so have the sewered areas.

Last year, the secretary (Mr T. A. Tucker) said that the old inner sewered area had a capital value of £Bom, and the No. 5 area a value of £l7om. From 1966 the No. 5 area would pay only 68 per cent of reticulation loan charges instead of the lot. | Saving and Increase

Without allowing for any new loans in the meantime. Mr Tucker said that about £51,000 would be taken off the No. 5 area and placed on the old sewerage area. This would mean an increase of about 12s lOd a £lOOO of capital value in the old area and a decrease of 9s 5d a £lOOO in the No. 5 area. In general, a ratepayer in the old area would pay 23J per cent more than last year, and in the No. 5 area there would be approximately 121 per cent less. These figures are unlikely to be altered much, but they are purely on the effect of consolidation, and do not take

into account any change the board may make in its general rates.

The picture for ratepayers can also be obscured by revaluation of local body districts within the board’s area and the effect of valuation equalisation. Waimairi, Heathcote, and Halswell counties have been revalued recently.

Only a small part of Halswell is in the board’s district.

If, as is likely, the board increases its general rate it is faced with salary and wage increases in line with the ruling-rates survey in the Public Service and increased land drainage works—there is still likely to be a saving for the ratepayers in the outer areas, and the increase for those in the inner area who have not borne reticulation loan rates in the past will be greater than the percentage estimated.