MOUNT ROSKILL RATING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20058, 22 September 1928, Page 16

MOUNT ROSKILL RATING.

Sir, —Mr. Dibble takes up a lot of space with platitudes and irrelevancies relating to boundary fences, such as they "define" boundary lines, and arc "held in common," but the fact remains that owners must pay for fences on a fifty-fifty basis, whether they use their land well, badly or not at ali. I contend that this principle applies with equal force in the case of borough utilities. Owners who hold their land idle, thereby forcing the local authority to make roads, lay mains, etc., past their frontages (in order to serve houses which have been forced further out), should pay in full. The utilities are thero foi them to use and if they do not choose to do so. it is their look out. I can see no good reason why they should be let off their fifty-fiftv share with those who improve their propeities, give employment, and add value to their own arid also to the speculators sections. Your correspondent says that "no one can economically hold vacant sections long without using them." How, then, does he account for the countless numbers of blocks all over Auckland (well within the commercial and residential areas) that have never had a building on them ? Near the heart of the city land worth hundreds of pounds per foot front is still vacant. Some of these afford sites for advertising, hoardings, which, presumably, pay the ridiculously small amount of rates which the capital value system imposes on them. They could not long bo ''economically" held vacant under the unimproved system. I think your readers will agree with me that these idle city blocks should pay the same as do the fine buildings by which they are surrounded. The tall building brings large numbers of people into the streets, and it is this that makes the land values in the shopping areas. Mr. Dibble goes out of his way to drag in Communism. In doing so ho merely indicates the weakness of his case. C.H.N.