BETTERMENT

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 39, 14 August 1930, Page 10

BETTERMENT

NO NEW IDEA

HISTOEICAL NOTES

ENGLAND AND'AMERICA

v A few days ago the City Valuer, Mr. F. N. Martin, was asked by a "Post" reporter if he could give some idea, in a general way, of the application of the betterment principle in Wellington. To-day Mr. Martin supplied some notes rather on the historical side, saying that he could not at the present time discuss those aspects which were rather matters of policy. , Mr. Martin particularly stressed that betterment is anything but a new idea.

His statement is as follows:—

When plans were prepared by Sir Christopher Wren and Sir John Evelyn for tho restoration of the City of London from Temple.Bar to the Tower after the Great Fire in 1666, providing several parallel lines of streets from east to west, all of them of greater width than Cheapside at the present time, the perverse self-interest of the citizens caused them to be set aside. These individual interests were powerful enough from that time onwards to thwart any comprehensive scheme for improvement. Select Committees appointed by Parliament in 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, 1808", .1809, 1810, 1817, 1820, and 1821 had reported on particular improvements, but between the years 1832 and 1851 tho necessity for street improvements was so fully recognised by Parliament that some eleven or twelve Select Committees were appointed to consider plans for tho improvement of the metropolis, and to advise as to the best means of carrying them out. Very few of these schemes were undertaken owing to the difficulty of obtaining a convenient source of revenue from which to pay the cost of tho works. The Metropolitan Board of Works was constituted in 1855, and from that date until it ceased to exist in 1889 it had constantly in hand extended works providing new and improved means of access from one part of the city to anotheT. THIRTY-SIX YEARS AGO. In 1860 a proposal was made that owners of property should bear part of the cost of permanent improvements by which their property was much increased in value, and was as usual strongly resisted. The powers, duties, and liabilities of the Metropolitan Board of Works were transferred to tho London County Council by the Local Government Act (England and Wales), 1888, and the principle of an improvement charge was adopted by the council in November, 1889. Strenuous opposition, however, prevented statutory approval being given to the principle until July, 1895. Then as a result of the setting up oi a Select Committee nominated by the House of Lords on 29th May, 1894, "to consider and report whether in the case of improvements sanctioned by Parliament and effected by the expenditure of public funds, persons, the value of whose property is clearly increased by an improvement, can be equitably required to contribute to the costs of the improvement, etc.," and the report of that committee as a result of hearing evidence from 28th May to 10th July, recognising the principle . of betterment, it passed into law. (London County Council (Tower Bridge Southern Approach) Act, 1895, Section 36.) The French law of 1807 provides for the eolleeion of local benefits due to public works or their deduction from the compensation to be paid for land taken for such works. Similar provisions are to be found in general ex-pro-priation laws of various German States, Belgium, Canada, and tho United States. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES. Local assessment is based on the principle that the land-owner should repay the special benefit he derives from a public work. He should certainly pay to the extent of that gain or other ratepayers will be compelled to pay for a portion of the benefit which he has received. Nelson P. Lewis, chief engineer of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, New York City, in proceedings of the Fourth National Conference on city planning, page 45, says:— "One principle should be invariably recognised, namely, where there is local benefit there should be local assessment. There can be no improvement which has been intelligently planned and executed which will not result in some local benefit, and it follows that there always should be some local assessment. No improvements, however small or -however large, will be of equal benefit to the entire- city, and to distribute the burden of paying for it over the whole city according to taxable values is unfair in that it is not placed according to benefit." In this connection it is informative to quote a report of the City Club of New York mentioned with approval by the Federal Electric Railways Commission in its report to the president in 1920.—

"The City Club of New York several years ago showed that as a result of the building of the- first rapid transit subway in New York the actual land values in those portions of Upper Manhattan and the Bronx which were most directly affected were within seven years increased 80,500,000 dollars above the normal increase for that period. The cost of that part of the subway passing through the districts where this rise in values took1 place was about 13,000,000 dollars, while the cost of the entire subway from the Battery north was 43,000,000 dollars. It is quite evident that if the 13,000,000 dollars which was spent on that part of the subway traversing the district so notably benefited had been assessed directly upon the property, its owners would still have netted a neat profit 'of some 07,500.000 dollars, while had the cost of the entire subwa3' been assessed upon the same limited district the net profit to the landowners would have been 37,500,000 dollars. Was it quite fair that property in different'parts of the city, entirely unaffected by this great' project, should bear the same proportion of the burden as that which was so conspicuosuly advantaged." THE BUYER'S PROFIT. In his work on the "Planning of the Modern City," referring to the theory that it is the right of the city to take for itself a part of the unearned increment or the increase in value of property which has been brought about through no act of the owner, Lewis quotes the following pertinent case: "In a large city in the United States it became necessary to increase the width of a certain street from 50 to SO feet, and to accomplish this.a strip 30 feet in width was taken from the property on one side of the street for the entire distance, reducing the depth of the lots on this side from 100 to 70 feet. One particular lot, 20 feet in width, with an old three-story brick house on it, was bought just before the widening by a man who habitually kept himself well informed concerning contemplated improvements, the price paid being 11,000 dollars. "Ho was awarded 10,000 dollars as compensation for the destruction of tho house and for damage to the lot owing to the decrease in its depth; but so greatly did the widening of the street increase the value of tho abutting property that within a few months he | sold the remnant, a lot.but 70 feet deep

with no building on it, for 12,000 dollars, or 1000 dollars more than the cost to him a few months earlier of the full depth lot and house, besides having been paid damages to the amount of 10,000 dollars. Tho city to finance this improvement was obliged.to borrow the sum of 2,022,700 dollars for a term of thirty years. The municipal authorities had determined to assess upon the neighbouring properties one-third of the cost of improvements, but there were vigorous protests against the injustice of such a procedure, and by a mandatory legislative Act the entire cost was thrown back upon the municipal treasury."

WIDELY RECOGNISED PRINCIPLE,

The justice and expediency of collecting betterment by special assessment on the land specially benefited is widely recognised all the world over. Two judicial pronouncements are of interest in this connection.

"There is a justice in this arrangement which commends itself to any right-thinking man, but the injustice of assessing property all over a city for the improvement of a single street must be apparent at a glance." "I concede that the system of local assessment is liable to abuse, for which reason Courts should scrutinise its application with care and also see that an equitable share of the burden should be borne by the public; but it will be readily forseen that if the whole local charge for local improvements is to be borne by the city treasury grievous abuses might be practised upon the inhabitants generally to subserve the local interests of designing men holding property in a particular neighbourhood." BUILDING LIKE TOO SLOW. The provision of a building line bylaw for effecting the widening of a street, especially where quick transit has to be provided for, is too slow in its action. In Manchester it took thirty years to widen Church street, between High street and Tib street from 42ft to 60ft and Brown street at its junction with King street from 20ft Bin to 36ft 3in. Excess condemnation rarely results in a profit being made; in fact, in only one case in London did a financial gain accrue from the taking of land, and that was in the case of Northumberland avenue, which was cut through from Trafalgar Square to the Thames Embankment. Special circumstances j in this case resulted in a profit of nearly £120,000. It is quite true that if funds were available to carry out an entire scheme of improvement at once, excess condemnation might conceivably in a few instances result in a profit, but where not only freeholds but leaseholds and tenancies have to be compensated for, no possibility of profit from the undertaking can arise. Piecemeal prosecution of the- work only results in increased prices having to be paid in the next section undertaken.

Thus far our experience conforms with the experience of cities in other parts of the world, Mr. Martin's statement concluded, and for the same reasons which actuated them in pressing for the right to make special assessments, we now find it necessary to promote legislation vesting the City Corporation with the same powers. Tha_t certain property owners have previously, through the carrying out of public improvements, profited at the expense of the general body of ratepayers is no sound reason why others should fatten through a continuation of an experience that has proved to be_ an irrational and essentially unfair policy.