ASSESSMENT COURT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2431, 20 May 1922, Page 3

ASSESSMENT COURT.

MOUTOA ESTATE VALUATION ' • £112,000.

OWNER'S ASK FOR £22,000 REDUCTION OR GOVERNMENT ACQUISITION.

COURT UPHELD PRESENT VALUATION.

A sitting of the Assessment Court was held in Palmerston North yesterday. The president was Mr V. G. Day, S.M., Mr. E. A. Campbell was Government assessox*, and Mr G. Kendell was local body assessor. One case was heard, that of Stevens Easton and Austin, owners of 4,218 acres in the Mt. Robinson survey district, a property carrying a large amount of flax. A revaluation of the property was made at £ll2, 000, but the owners contended it should he reduced to £.00,000, or taken by the Government at their valuation. Mr Innes represented the ownei’s.

Mr Innes said that the objection was a more or less foirnal one, as they proposed to -take advantage of that section of the Valuation of Lands Act, whereby they could request the Government to take over the land at, the owner’s valuation failing a reduction in the assessment to that amount. The property was part of the Moutoa Estate on the road from Foxton -to Shannon, about one mile from the main road. Only flax was grown on the place, but a very small amount .of grazing was also done. The value of the flax, £11,161, had been included in the unimpi’oved value, which was a thing he could not understand as the Act said that no flax would be counted in tfte unimproved value, provided it. was not planted by the owners. The value, he submitted, did not exceed £l6 per acre. . The flax had been affected by disease, and the land was subject to flood. In 1916 the valuation was £8 per acx*e, and now if. was £22 Bs, ivhereas they valued it at £l6 or thereabouts.

Alfred Fraser, Foxton, accountant- for the firm which owns the land, said it was largely flaxbearing, being all low-lying swamp, in the centre of a basin', and being subject to frequent floods. In 1916 the valuation of £8 per acre included the growing of flax. His valuation to-day was £l6, excluding the flax, which would" not be worth over £2,500 per annum. It was cut only once in four years. This was equal to a tax of £BO per acre. The market was very depressed, and was falling all the time. In 1918 flax brought £B6; now it was only worth £3O. The royalty they received was now 12s 6d a ton, whereas it had been 40s a ton. The land was not used for anything but flax growing, except to graze a few bead of stock. He based his valuation of £l6 an afcreon the fact that the land was of no use for anything but flax. Grazing brought in about £290 p year, this included the rent ol‘ two small holdings on the river bank, one of 40 acres, and -the other of 30, for which they received £1 per aere as rent. It was not a place that would sell if cut upinto allotments as tbe risk of flpods from the Manawatu river was too great. The president said that going to the lowest part of the market the firm had been receiving a return of about £B,OOO, without spending a sixpence. Further, the president maintained that last year the total returns of the land amounted to approximately net. The land tax amounted to. over £3,000, and the County and drainage tax to about £2,000. Continuing, Mr Fraser said that last year the total returns amounted to £6,913 net. The land tax came to over £3,000, and the county and drainage taxes made up another £1,090. The property was open for sale for £90,000 cash. Dairying could not be carried on except after a large sum of money had been spent on the land. He considered that a fair average royalty was between 35s and 20s per ton. Tbe president stated that, it would pay the Government to give £90,000 in bonds for the land, and get all that revenue without expending anything. The Court briefly conferred and announced that the revaluation would he sustained.