Rate increases may bring about mutiny

By TONY GEE

RUSSELL - Annoyed ratepayers in the eastern Bay of Islands and Russell are demanding that the Far North District Council review recent rate rises of up to 94 per cent for some property owners.

About 170 residents and ratepayers jammed the Russell Town Hall this week to consider ways to oppose current rate hikes described as "outrageous and unacceptable" by local Ratepayers and Citizens Association chairman Roger Murray.

There is even talk of trying to transfer the whole area to the Whangarei District Council to get lower rating levels if major relief is not forthcoming.

Mr Murray said many Russell ratepayers were on fixed incomes and that put an unfair burden on the town.

"Those who have saved for modest properties are now being rated out of their retirement homes."

Many residents paying above-average Far North district rates have no footpaths, streetlights, kerbing, council water, rubbish collection or sewerage systems.

One resident at the Russell meeting said: "We're being milked as a cash cow until we're put out to grass in the back paddock and new stock are brought in."

In Russell, one property rose in land value by nearly 100 per cent from $82,000 in 1998-99 to $160,000 this year.

Annual rates in Russell have gone up on average from $1119 per property to $1361, excluding an additional $585 yearly sewerage charge for a scheme which has been six years in the making and is still not operating.

The Russell sewerage scheme, which has already cost nearly $4.4 million, may still be two years away from completion while the council, directed by the Environment Court, tests an untried soakage system.

The council has budgeted an extra $1 million on the controversial scheme's next stage, bringing total spending on it to around $5.3 million.

In eastern Far North locations some rates have shot up this financial year on the back of big increases in residential land values recorded by Quotable Value New Zealand.

Residential rates have jumped by 53 per cent on average in eastern Bay of Islands coastal settlements.

In the whole Russell area from Tapeka to Ngaiotonga - where 6 per cent of the district's ratepayers are liable for 10 per cent of the council's total general rate income - average rating bills are now $1690 without sewerage charges, which are currently heading for $1500 a property.

Average annual rates for a New Zealand household were $948 last year.

Ratepayer anger has brought a response from Far North mayor Yvonne Sharp, who said the council would look at some form of rate relief, especially for elderly people, so they would not be rated out of their homes.

The council will soon consider the reintroduction of a scheme, dropped two years ago by the previous council, for rates postponement.