BETTERMENT PRINCIPLES

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 49, 26 August 1930, Page 8

BETTERMENT PRINCIPLES

(To tho Editor.)

Sir,—There can bo no valid argument against betterment per se. . And you are quite correct in stating "that no such argument was offered by councillors ;or speakers at the Wellington City Rate? payers' Association meeting. In your first leader, about tho stU* inst., you stated that the objections directed against the pro* posed Bill were: '(a) The constitution of. the Assessment Court; (b) the method of ascertaining the added value chargeable to the community; and (c) the method of charging the owner's share again Uis own property. There are other objections, but none of them pretond x to be objections to the general principle of betterment. Tho City Council has now ample legal powers to take private property for the | benefit of the community and the betterment of the city-as a'city. ; These powers I are contained in the Public Works Act, the ' Municipal Corporations „ Act, the Town Planning Acfo and the Wellington City Betterment Act, 1900, To the operation of these Acts for the betterment of the city ratepayers take no objection because they are founded upon equity and reasonableness. No one has yet shown wherein these Acts in operation have acted unfairly to any community or detrimentally to property owners when the good of the community is concerned. But the Wellington City Council is not satisfied with these Acts. Has the council ever operated the Town Planning Act or the Wellington City Betterment Act, 1000, although the latter has been available for nearly thirty years? , And why should Wellington have special legislation anyway? This further special legislation, the Wellington City Betterment Bill, 1030, is unfair, unreasonable, unjust, and is likely to lead to extravagance and j greater burdens upon propertyowmnfi i ratepayers.1 If the Assesment Board it proposes to establish were a Judge of the j Supreme Court and one assessor for the Corporation and another fov the^property owners, no one would Bay a word against that part of it. When the Town Planner, the Chief Surveyor, and the City Valuer are for the council and only -one person appointed' by the Qovernor-m-Council for the property owners, are to constitute the Court, how can any pne imagine that such a board would give satisfaction? Besides, should the owner whose land is taken and whose property is levied upon by Buch a board for a sum of £2000 for betterment, the board, should the owner appeal, is not called upon to justify its charge against the property, but the owner is called upon to convince the' Appeal Court that the charge is .not legitimate. That is not the way of common law to secure justice to the expropriated owner of land or to an owner of property alleged to be bettered by a city improvement undertaken for the good of the community. "Put the case another way. Where is the need for assessing property with, say, a payment of £2000 for betterment' when (if that is bo) the value added "is taken away from the owner in thirty or forty year's by an increased levy of rates? What the Bill proposes is that the council ehaii have it both ways. The owner shall have to pay in cash £2000. for betterment and as his valuation for rating purposes will be increased by that amount he wjjrbe paying rates upon the very amount he has paid out of his pocked to the council. This Bill is notoriously bad and unjust. The Betterment Bill of '1000 has none of these attributes. Equitable betterment is sound in principle. Of course, it is a Christian principle that if the City Council takes your land you havo to give it your buildings also. Under the Mayor s Betterment Bill, 1930, the council would not only take your land and buildings, but would demand your purse as well, That the council has lost many thousands of the ratepayers' money in its blundering betterment scheme is no excuse for its most ...recent acquisitive proposals in the namo of betterment. —lam, etc., .

■RATEPAYER.