Rates exemption questioned

Press, 13 June 1979, Page 6

Rates exemption questioned

The Christchurch City Council will determine how much more income it would have if non-rateable properties were subject to normal demands.

The council’s policy and finance committee called yesterday for a computer programme on the subject. An inquiry by the Baptist Union had asked if the council would support a rates exemption on land where the church built pensioner housing.

Three private organisations have already built such housing in Christchurch: the St Albans Baptist Church, the Glenora Foundation, and the Salvation Army Trust Board.

Council-owned pensioner housing is exempted from rates under a 1939 empowering act. Those units are financed . by Housing Corporation loans and subsidies. Councillors said they

would not be able to support a bill for only one organisation, and they also doubted whether such legislation was possible.

Sir Terence McCombs said the Rating Act could not be amended by either a local or private bill. “The day may come when we think even our own ones should be rateable,” said the Mayor of Christchurch (Mr H. G. Hay). Officers were asked to report on the implications of such legislation. Cr D. C. Close said the first few years of pensioner units were the most difficult. After that, perhaps all such housing, including the council’s, could be rateable. One way or the other, it should be a metropolitan policy, said Cr M. R. Carter. If only the City Council had non-rateable pensioner housing land for private groups, developers would try to put all such housing inside the city.