UNIMPROVED RATING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26619, 15 November 1947, Page 4

UNIMPROVED RATING

Reply to Recent Address The Rev. D. H. Stewart (president of the Oamaru Rating Unimproved Value Association) addressed a meeting in the Wear Street Hall on Thursday night, when he outlined the objects of the association. and answered questions raised by Messrs J. C. Kirkness and K. Familton at a previous meeting. Mr J. C. Kirkness was in the chair. Mr Stewart said he was in the fight because he believed that the rating on unimproved values conformed to the principles of social justice, equal rights to all and special privileges for none. Unimproved value was the value of a site as a bare site: capital value was the value of site plus the value of whatever improvements were erected in that site; and annual rental or letting value—that in force in Oamaru—was the rent which a tenant might reasonably be expected to pay the capital value of a property determining the rental value. If the new system was adopted, lie continued, it would come into force after March 31. 1948, and not almost immediately, as Mr Kirkness had said. After the official gazetting of the Government valuations of Oamaru on March 31, 1948, ratepayers would have ample time in which to object. Mr Kirkness had no ground for saying that the rate would be Is 6d in the £1 on new valuations. Both Messrs Kirkness and Familton s figures were incorrect. The present known rateable value of Oamaru was £536,802. The borough required £43,467 to carry out its activities, which worked out at a shade over Is sd. but Is 5d would not be the figure for the next rating year. There t were 2657 rateable properties in Oamaru. which meant an average rate of £ls 12s 9d per property. This was pretty high; the next highest was Dunedin (annual values) with £l4. Auckland (annual values) £l2 18s: Christchurch (unimproved values) £ll 11s; Wellington (unimproved values) £5 2s 4d. Coming to the point made by both Mr Kirkness and Mr Familton that unimproved value would result in people losing their equity and their homes and that it would create undue hardship, Mr Stewart asked how many people had lost these things in Invercargill, Gore, St. Kilda, Timaru, Christchurch and many other places when unimproved value was carried. Whereas all the local authorities in the Dominion rated on annual values rating in the early days, only about 23 rated on that system to-day. If annual values rating had all the virtues which were claimed for it, why was it that it was steadily being abandoned? At the close of Mr Stewart's address, Mr Kirkness proposed a vote of thanks to the speaker.