Uneasy Ratepayers

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 252, 14 January 1928, Page 6

Uneasy Ratepayers

TAKAPUNA AGITATION Rates Cause Dissatisfaction THOUGH nothing has lately been heard of tht pioposals that part of the Takapnna and Northcote Boronghs should secede, amalgamating to form a as Shoal Bay, the original undercurrents of dissatisfaction a still in motion, and sponsors of the mo\ement fl '°“u present they are simply biding their time, waiting for the Takapuna Borough Council’s next moie.

OINCE October, when the radical ® proposition first took shape, the petition of dissatisfied ratepayers has been swelled by 50 more names. New names, says Mr. James Hamilton, who is heading the movement, are constantly being added. Complaints set before the council when the first murmur o£ dissatisfacfaction reached its ears were mainly on the lines that the inner or. harbourfront fringe of Takapuna had not shared in the improvements extended to other sections of the municipality. A major complaint was over drainage, to which the council’s answer was that extension of drainage faci-

lities, at present withheld from all hut a few, was simply a matter of time. The malcontents responded with the main argument against their present status, the fact that rates are expected to rise heavily this year, under the newly-introduced system of rating on unimproved values. They added general complaints against their roads, and the system under which the trend of improvements has directed the great proportion of settlement to the other edge of the borough. PETITION SUPPORTED The petition promulgated by Mr Hamilton was much more freely supported than was required under the legislative arrangements, which specify that agitation for such a change can be set in motion by means of a petition bearing the names of onefifth of the ratepayers in the area affected. This would have demanded about 175 names to serve the purposes of the dissatisfied Takapuna residents, but they actually received a good

many more, and there are now 250 signatures on ttie list. mis was put before the Tahapuna of the session. There were delays, however, and a committee representing the ers was ashed to meet the France Committee of the council. At me meeting, according to Mr. Hamilton, one councillor adopted tie attitude that the aims of the petition were a reproach to the council, daongli its implication that parts of the borohgh had been neglected. Subsequently the council declined to agree with either of the main requirements of the petitioners that » separate ward or rating area should be formed, or that a road to improve the access and general plant should be built around the shore of Shoal Bai, but by that time the Parliamentary session had ended, and it was too late for the petitioners to fulfil, for the time, their objective of carrying the complaint to the House. Meanwhile, however, the Minister of Internal Affairs had been given an intimation of the nature of the controversy, and had explained to the petitioners the steps needed before their objective could be attained. During the same period the Takapuna Borough Council was propounding further loan proposals, involving £30,000 and the dissatisfied section says that as soon as that proposal is definitely submitted to the ratepayers the -petition will be launched and presented to the Minister of Internal Affairs, setting in motion processes that will, temporarily at least, prevent the passage of the loan.

HOPES OF PETITIONERS Whether the aspirations of the petitioners, with their visions of a new borough at a time when amalgamation is a far more general cry, will ever be realised, is a different question. Before proposals for the formation of a new municipality can be submitted to the ratepayers concerned, they have to be examined by a highly-qualified commission, and the Shoal Bay area, without extensive reclamation or a harbour bridge, presents an apparent lack of identified interest, which might at the outset shatter its hopes of development. Apart from these possibilities, however, the people in the area concerned seem determined to go on with their agitation until, at least, there is a prospect of improvement under the present system. Many of them are small farmers, relying on poultry or crops to win them a living. As a result they greet with indignation a rating system which levies upon their properties a rate aimed primarily igainst the land speculator. “Our properties,” said Mr. Hamilton yesterday, “can have no speculative value for at least eight years. As for the hope that the revaluation will help us, we see little in that. The valuer has been round recently, and we believe that when the revaluations are announced, in February, the difference they create will be negligible.”