URBAN FARM LANDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21296, 24 September 1932, Page 10

URBAN FARM LANDS

A> reference in the GovernorGeneral's Speech at the opening of Parliament indicates that legislation affecting the rating of farm lands in boroughs, town districts and road districts—commonly called urban farm lands —may be expected during the session. The high rates paid by small holders struggling to make a living from land in such circumstances have long been the subject of complaint. In 1928 a Eoyal Commission investigated the question, taking the conditions at Otaki and afterwards at Feilding as typical. Its report recommended a system of differential rating based on a classification of land into three categories, fyuilding land, potential building land and farm land. The following year the Government introduced an Urban Farm Lands Rating Bill, embodying, in the main, the recommendations of the commission. It was generally welcomed by members, but aftfer a second reading debate it was referred to a select committee for consideratipn and the hearing of evidence. At its sittings strenuous opposition to Che bill developed from a number of local bodies, and eventually it was decided to recommend that the measure be not allowed to proceed. There was an understanding that the whole question would be further considered by the Municipal Conference held in 1030. Meantime the landowner was not left wholly without means of relief. By a temporary expedient provided in 1938 a local , authority was cm-

powered to forward to the ValuerGeneral for confirmation approved appeals from landowners for a reduction in valuation. The objection to this expedient, voiced in Parliament, was that the tax-levying and collecting authority was put in a position to checkmate attempts to secure relief, and it Was suggested that anxiety to maintain rating revenue might affect its judgment. In practice, numbers of applications endorsed by local authorities wore rejected by the Valuer-General. Members complained that at best the safeguard was likely to work inequitably. The Royal Commission had definitely preferred differential rating to relief through different valuation There should have been time by now for an agreed scheme to be formulated, and it is to be hoped that a renewed attempt to assist hard-driven small holders will be successful.