HUTT RATING

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 56, 4 September 1945, Page 6

HUTT RATING

POLL PROPOSAL

The merits of the system of rating on annual value were stressed last night by Mr. J. W. Andrews, Mayor of Lower Hutt, when he addressed a meeting of ratepayers in St. James's Hall, Woburn Road. Mr. Andrews was explaining the meaning of the poll which is to be held in the district next Saturday to support the proposal that the'basis be changed from one of rating on unimproved value. Mr. C. H. Ham, president of the Lower Hutt Ratepayers' Association, said that it was intended to substitute a system of rating on annual values. Most towns, said Mr. Andrews, rated on capital value; some rated on annual value (which, in fact, was the production value of the property), and some rated on the unimproved value, which was the Government value of the land only. Up to 1936 he had been an ardent believer in unimproved values, and he had not lightly changed his views; nor had he changed them because he had become a bloated aristocrat with landed possessions. "I have changed my views completely from unimproved value to annual value because I believe it is the only fair and equitable system applicable to Lower Hutt," said Mr. Andrews. Unimproved value rating had done its job in breaking up the big holdings, and he believed that it had got to the stage where continuing the system would soon lead to overbuilding, overcrowding, and slum conditions, He did not think there was a single town in New Zealand that had changed to annual values and had gone back to any other system. Every local body that was rating on the annual system had reported favourably on it to the Municipal Association. Mr. Andrews quoted the case of a widow in a cottage possibly s paying more in rates under the unimproved value system than the proprietor of a large block of flats next door. "As far as Lower Hutt is concerned," said^Mr. Andrews, "annual value would benefit four times as many people as it would penalise, and in every case where it apparently penalises it does not actually penalise, but it merely places the charge where the charge should be in view of the services which supply the property." HOSPITAL RATING. Mr. Andrews spent some time discussing the burden of hospital rating. He did not believe, he said, that the hospital costs should descend on the ratepayers, but as the law stood that was the case, and they were endeavouring to spread it as equitably as possible. The hospital levy was based on capital value, whereas rates were collected on unimproved value. It had been hoped that the. large industrial expansion in the district would prove to be a boon to the district, but if a change of rating were not adopted such a system might become an intolerable burden on the cottage ratepayers of the district. Mr. Andrews referred also to the anomalous position created by the State houses in the district, which returned far less on the unimproved value than privately-owned houses alongside them. "Under the annual valuation system the valuations are made by the local authority, and not by the Government Valuer, and valuations are up to date in that they cannot be made at greater intervals than three years; in most cases they are made annually," said Mr. Andrews, who urged his hearers to support the proposal.

"When I was first appointed, I tried te study how one sets about becoming a good High Commissioner," said Sir Patrick Duff, United Kingdom High Commissioner, replying to the State welcome accorded him yesterday. "And I realised," he continued, "that I could not do better than try to model myself as best I could on the example of that most kindly and genial and manly of mortals, your New Zealand High Commissioner in London, my old friend Mr. Jordan. If I can be as successful in representing the United Kingdom here as he is in representing the New Zealnd Government in London, I shall be well content."'