Ratepayers revolt over ARC bills

By ANNE BESTON and BERNARD ORSMAN

Ratepayer groups are urging residents to drip-feed rates payments while they mount a legal challenge against a new rates take.

North Shore and Rodney District ratepayers associations, the first to be hit by the new Auckland Regional Council rates, are advising residents to pay one-tenth of their rates bill by the due date to avoid penalties while they ask the Auditor-General to investigate the rates increase.

David Thornton, Glenfield Ratepayers and Residents Association chairman, and John Drury, Orewa Ratepayers president, said yesterday that their phones had run hot as residents vented anger over rates rises of more than 200 per cent.

"This is absolutely huge. It's the biggest issue I can remember on the North Shore," Mr Thornton said.

He has asked the Office of the Auditor-General to investigate and written to Local Government Minister Chris Carter.

He said it was intolerable that North Shore residents were asked to pay part of the $28 million the ARC says it needs to subsidise the rail network when North Shore had no trains.

A spokeswoman for the Office of the Auditor-General, Ann Webster, said: "This one is of quite a high level of public concern, and if there are matters for us to investigate we would try and get to them quickly."

Mr Drury said a petition had been circulated to ratepayer associations on the North Shore and in Rodney.

An ARC spokesman told the Herald that if someone refused to pay their rates, the council would invoke the Rating Powers Act to recover the debt through a mortgagee sale, although only after all other avenues of debt collection were exhausted.

"It's the law of the land, not our rules."

Anyone who refused to pay their ARC rates would first be hit with a 10 per cent penalty the day after the due date. If the bill was still unpaid when the next year's rates were due, another 10 per cent penalty would be added every six months.

Philip Sherry, deputy chairman of the ARC and regional councillor for nine years, said the idea that the council knowingly acted illegally was "an absolute nonsense".

He conceded that the increase would impose hardship, but said the council had acted in the best interests of the region.

He added that North Shore residents were not paying a transport service fee - charged to those in the city, Manukau and Waitakere - because there was no rail system there.