Letters: Rates rises and police pursuits

Tauranga City Council meeting. Photo / File

I have difficulty following the discontent of some people about a planned 12.5 per cent rates rise.

Ratepayers have been underpaying for years, taking the benefits of property ownership and not giving back.

Just look at the enormous capital gains ratepayers have made on their properties over recent years.

A typical property in Mount Maunganui taken at random with a GV of $725,000 in 2016 has a 2020 GV of$1.4m - a capital gain in four years of $625,000.

The current rates for that property of $4265.62 per annum will increase with a 12.5 per cent rates rise to $4798.82 - an increase of $533.20 per year. This is a fraction of the property's annual capital gain.

This city has fallen behind in providing for the new generations.

How long will it take to build a new civic centre and conference centre or build a museum, sports stadium or several 50m swimming pools without rates increases?

Just look at Hamilton Gardens to see what can be done with a forward thinking council.

I commend Mayor Tenby Powell, deputy Larry Baldock and other councillors who voted for a rates rise of 12.5 per cent.

It is a shame that they didn't go all the way for a 17.5 per cent rise.

John Douglas
Tauranga

TV glamourises pursuits

Your front-page article (Monday, March 9) with the police plea for people to stop driving when required made interesting reading.

The only trouble with the article is that 99 per cent of the very people who cause these incidents don't or are incapable of reading newspapers.

Further more, while action television and movies continue to glamorise this type of behavior which appeals to the "let's give the cops a go" mentality, pursuits with the usual bad endings and subsequent wailing and wringing of hands will continue.

Donald Richard Lyon
Rotorua