Readers' views: Bill for living in Auckland just does not rate for many

Rate notices from local councils are arriving in letterboxes across the country - and sparking anger in some communities. Herald readers share their views on council bills:

We live on Waiheke Island. We live where there are no footpaths, no street lights, the heavens above supply us with the bulk of our water, septic tanks help do the "job". Our rates were $2661. They are now $3213. Keep stirring.

- John Norman, Waiheke Island.

Does anyone else in Auckland ever ask the question? Why does Auckland have to continue to grow? It would seem that the ratepaying people who have lived all their lives in Auckland, by choice, are once again having to pay for what we have already paid for previously, infrastructure. Stop this continued spread of Auckland, stop the cross-subdividing of existing residential land, stop allowing tens of thousands of new immigrants to settle in Auckland by choice. Allocate immigration numbers to be spread throughout the country, insist new immigrants settle where they are told to, with a substantial bond for the first five years. But stop using Auckland as some kind of human experimental sponge, to soak up uncontrollable numbers of people. Give the people, who made Auckland what it is today, our city back.

- Ron Johnson, Panmure.

Your interview with Mrs Curlett (in Monday's Herald) is timely. She is quite right to say that our money is spent unwisely, and I agree absolutely that we should not be paying for the Eden Park upgrade or the Vector Arena - or for councillors to take expensive overseas trips. The council's business is infrastructure, and that is where our rates should be directed. Council should not be concerned with social services - such as cheap housing - for which we are already paying through our taxes, and it must be remembered that this council has not been averse to approving developments which can only add to the strain on the infrastructure - such as Mt Wellington quarry and Sylvia Park. I urge the council to change its ways, stop wasting our money on nonsense and get on with the job it is supposed to be doing. It may not be the most exciting of tasks, but it should be the reason for the council to exist, and the only justification for charging rates.

- Geraldine Taylor, Remuera.

In response to your article in Monday's Herald, I would like to say that we live in Mt Eden and our ACC rates alone have gone from a total of $2564.84 to$3812.50. While I don't mind paying if I see value for money, I believe the residential ratepayers are being punished unrealistically because of the reduction in commercial rates. They have action groups like Property Council etc which take issue with their rates and have therefore won out. Replacing trees and kerb stones in Queen Street is one illustration of the wastage that is occurring when the old and mature are far nicer anyway.

- D. Townsend, Mt Eden.

My problem is not with rates but with the media's reluctance to allow discussion of alternatives to rates. The facts on house ownership support the need to abandon rates as an increasingly untenable source of local body revenues in favour of income tax. With a very low percentage increase in income and company tax, government could afford to share its revenue with local bodies on a population basis and in return we could get rid of rates, regional levies, water charges, and charges for this and that. And if at the same time we put all Auckland's cities together into a single city government ... a sort of 21st-century Auckland province, we could dispense with the regional authority and the myriad of ad hoc organisations supplying water, interfering with transport plans, and the rest.

- Bernard Gadd, Papatoetoe.

Having just got my rates demand I would be happy to have had a 13.4 per cent rise, not the 50 per cent that came. Seeing the story in the paper I wonder how any others got a "13.4 per cent" increase. Now, if only the incoming would increase to cover the increase in outgoings, but obviously the ACC are not concerned about that or the fact that most do not support their grand schemes, eg, Eden Park.

- Murray Otter.

With my latest rates letter, not only did I receive the increase, I received a pamphlet that said on the front, "building the city you want to live in". The city that I want to live in is, first and foremost, one that I can afford. It's fast becoming the case that Auckland isn't. I wonder how much it cost them to print that pamphlet, and I wonder who paid for it?

- Paul Conaghan, Grey Lynn.