Couple face 87% rise

Press, 31 May 1985, Page 4

Couple face 87% rise

“The Press” chose three properties in different suburbs to give an indication of how much rates have been affected by the fiveyearly revaluation. One property is in Merivale, and another in Mount Pleasant, two areas in which land values have risen the most. The third property is in Addington. Margaret Flanagan and Bruce Harrison bought their Rugby Street property in 1975 for $lOOO below the Government valuation of $40,000. Now the Government valuation on the 90-year-old weatherboard, two-storey house and 46-perch section is $114,500 — $68,100 on land and $46,400 on improvements. Before revaluation last July the property was valued at $25,000 for land and $20,500 for improvements.

Last year the couple faced a rates bill of $llOB. This year they have been told by the council that it will be about $2077. This represents a 87.4 per cent increase. Ms Flanagan said little work other than painting had been done on the house between the last two valuations. A driveway had been put in in the last few months since the 1984 valuation. The downstairs part of the house, which has three of the five bedrooms, is rented and the couple see little option but to recoup some of the rates increase from the tenants. Ms Flanagan said they were not whingeing about their rates, but were simply flabbergasted at the huge increase. The system of tying the rates to property values was iniquitous, she said. The

property value bore no relation to the services received for the rates paid.

Mr Harrison said a friend who lived “just round the corner but in the Waimairi District, with a house of the same value,” paid about $7OO in rates. The friend expected to face a similar rates increase next year because of Waimairi’s revaluation and perhaps a further increase from the effects of local body amalgamation. A Mount Pleasant resident, who preferred not to be named, owns a contemporary house in Santa Maria Avenue with a 1984 Government valuation of $127,000. The 1979 valuation was $60,000. It was assessed soon after the house was built and before landscaping in the neighbourhood was fully established.

Last year, the rates bill on the property was $954.

This year it will be $llB3, an increase of 23.9 per cent. The Addington property is in Ruskin Street. It is an older-style family home on which the owners have made substantial interior and exterior improvements since buying it in 1978. The 1984 Government valuation is $40,000 — land, $12,000, and improvements, $28,000. Its 1979 valuation was $16,500. Last year, the owners paid $434 in rates. This year their rates will be $455, an increase of 4.7 per cent.

When the owner telephoned the council’s rating office this week to check what his rates bill was likely to be he was given this formula to use for a rough estimate of his rates: land value multiplied by $26 plus improvements multiplied by $5 then divide by 1000.