FARMS IN BOROUGHS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 335, 21 April 1928, Page 13

FARMS IN BOROUGHS

HEAVY BURDEN OF RATES OTAKI TO HAVE INQUIRY Press Association. WELLINGTON, Friday. The Government is setting up a commission of inquiry to deal with rating matters in the Borough of Otaki. The Hon. A. D. McLeod, Minister in Charge of the Valuation Department, said to-day that the inability of the small farmers holding areas within the boroughs and town districts to meet the increasing demands for the payment of both general and special rates on their properties has been prominently brought under the notice of the Government in recent years by the way of requests for local Bills and for commissions for the purpose of excluding farms from the borough boundaries. In both cases the object is to avoid payment of the heavy borough taxation which, in a growing number of instances, amounts practically to an entire confiscation of the value of the land. It is not uncommon to see a variation of up to 1,000 per cent, in local taxes levied upon one property merely because one portion of it is situated within a borough and the other in an adjacent county.

In a few cases local Bills have been passed by Parliament in an endeavour to rectify the anomaly, but the most popular means has been by way of a petition to exclude the areas affected from the-borough limits. This method, however, does not provide a solution for the following reasons: (1) protection of local body finances, (2) continuing liability of excluded lands for special rates. The whole question of a remedy has been under consideration by the Department of Internal Affairs and the Valuation Department for some time, and in view of the fact that it is of such general importance, and that such diverse inte’rests are involved, the Government decided to set up a commission to make a comprehensive inquiry into the matter as it obtains in the Borough of Otaki. This commission, which consists of Mr. R. M. Watson, stipendiary magistrate, Feilding, as chairman, Mr. W. T. Strand, Mayor of Lower Hutt, and Mr. W. Nash, general secretary of the New Zealand Labour Party, proposes to commence its investigations at Otaki on May 8, 1928. The order of reference submitted for the consideration of this commission is very wide, embracing questions relating to boundaries, wards, health, valuations, loans, differential rating, systems of rating etc. “The Otaki Borough was selected for investigation because it presents a typical instance of the problem referred to, and is easily accessible to expert witnesses. It is the sincere desire of the Government that the fullest inquiry be made into all matters which may, either directly or indirectly, be the cause of the difficulties referred to.”