MERGER FAVOURED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 907, 26 February 1930, Page 11

MERGER FAVOURED

MT. ALBERT RATEPAYERS DISSATISFIED WANT TO JOIN CITY Dissatisfaction at the alarming increases in borough rates prompted the Mount Albert Terminus Ratepayers’ and Residents’ Association to pass a resolution last evening favouring merging of the borough into the Auckland City area. Presiding over an attendance of 50 members, Mr. P. Floyd suggested the advisability of submerging the borough’s identity. The alarming increase of the rates, and the fact that £750,000 of loan moneys, expected to last 14 years, would be spent in half that time at the present rate, demanded some drastic action. he asserted. Meantime, he claimed the council should deal only with necessary drainage. Conservatively estimating the borough's indebtedness at £750,000, Mr. G. R.-Stenson said that at 7 percent, the interest and sinking fund charges would amount to £52,000 a year. This would represent a rate of (Ud in the £1 on unimproved values, or 2ld in the £1 on capital values. £1,000,000 DEBT? At the present rate of borrowing one could expect the total debt to be increased to £1,000,000 in four or five years. The interest and sinking fund on that amount would be equivalent, on a 7 per cent, basis, to a rate of in the £1 on the unimproved value, or nearly 3d in the £1 on the capital value. There had to be added the cost of administration, lighting, hospital and fire prevention levies and the maintenance of roads and the drainage system, amounting to £58,194 in 192728. Taking into account the probable decrease in maintenance costs, in four or five years’ time, those charges could be placed at £38,000, equivalent to a rate of on the unimproved value. That meant that in five years’ time a rate of 13id on the unimproved value would have been reached. With the rates increasing as they were, it was time they joined the City, he added amid applause. The motion favouring the borough’s amalgamation with the City was carried with a few dissentient voices. Mr. Floyd announced that he had received an assurance from Mr. C. G. Munns, M.P. for Roskill, that tenders for a new post office in Mount Albert would be called at the end of March. The meeting also discussed a protest made by the Mount Albert Borough Council against the conversion of the residence of the Mount Albert medical superintendent of the Mental Hospital, into a ward for incipient patients. The association decided to take no action.