PETONE VALUATIONS

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 104, 27 January 1931, Page 16

PETONE VALUATIONS

Task Nearly Finished

POSITION of owners

The Government revaluations of the Petone borough are nearly complete, and the notices will shortly be sent out. Since the last revaluation in 1923 considerable progress has been made in the borough. Petone is now no longer merely an area west of the Recreation Ground. The,development is most to be seen in the M ilford settlement, Jackson Street, and in the Kensington Avenue block. “It is only natural.” .said an authority yesterday, that this progress should result in increased values. But that is rather a cause for congratulation among ratepayers, and not for panic that the rates they will have to pay will thereby be increased. Provided the amount of. money required for 'the administration and maintenance of the borough remains the same, the increased values will result in a decrease in the amount of rates payable in ‘the £l. .It js even probable in some cases that instead of having to pay more in rates the owners will be called on to pay less. Should the notices they receive from the Government, therefore, show an increase in values, the owner is advised not to rush in haste to the department for an appeal form, but first to wait and see what his property will have to pay in rates. “A property with an enhanced Government value upon it. will have a better chance in the market if it is desired to selh” , t , From one who has been in close touch with the problem of valuing and knot’s Petone well, it is ascertained that the valuers have done their work efficiently, and that there has .been a tendency to moderation in all things. The actual figures of increases, or of totals, are not yet, of course,.available. There is one point in which the" new values will be of importance, and that is that when the municipal elections this year are .being contested and the question of the amalgamation of Petone and Lower Hutt is being discussed, the comparative figures of the two boroughs will be more equable than when the report on amalgamation was drawn up. In that report it was necessary to proceed a lot pn assumption in the use of many figures and items.