By WAYNE THOMPSON
One of the country's largest shopping centres, Lynnmall, expects more than $600,000 to be chopped off its rates bill by the Waitakere City Council.
This follows a Land Valuation Court ruling which reduced the council's valuation of the centre for rating purposes from $18.5 million to $11 million.
The tribunal's correction to the 1998 valuation meant that the rates bill for Lynnmall in the current financial year would fall by $315,491, said the council's corporate secretary, Graeme Wakefield.
It also meant that the council had to refund Lynnmall $321,720 of the rates it paid for the previous year.
Mr Wakefield said the reduction of $7.5 million represented 1.9 per cent of the total land value of the city's commercial industrial sector.
The shortfall in rates revenue would have to be made up by making a greater levy on other commercial and industrial ratepayers.
The council would have to strike a rate, based on the adjusted valuation roll, at a special meeting on January 16.
Peter Churchill, of AMP Property Fund - Lynnmall's owner - said the company had objected to how the council's valuer, Quotable Value New Zealand, had fixed the centre's land value.
He said it was rare for the tribunal to award an objector everything that was claimed.
The objector and the council would normally negotiate a settlement before reaching the tribunal, Mr Churchill said.
This time, the council had acted on information given to it by Quotable Value New Zealand that Mr Churchill said was not as relevant as it should have been.
There was agreement on $138 million being the capital value of the centre, which covers 7ha.
There was a $40 million expansion of the centre a year ago.
The council's land valuation was on the basis that New Lynn was an established commercial area and served a growing population.
However, the objector argued that the value was affected by competition from St Lukes and the emergence of such shopping centres as WestCity and Westgate.
The tribunal chairman, Judge John Hole, said the decision had little or no precedent value.
Shopping centre rates cut
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