Rates clash delivers double whammy

By WAYNE THOMPSON

Waitakere City ratepayers will have to pay two rates bills within a few days of each other because of a billing clash between their council and the Auckland Regional Council.

Few of the city's property owners received their regional council bills yesterday and the rest are expecting theirs during this week.

Waitakere City rates, which will rise on average by $89, are due for payment on August 20.

ARC rates are due for payment on August 18.

Waitakere City chief executive Harry O'Rourke expressed his concern to the ARC in May about the timing of its rates bills.

"Having both councils' rates payable within such a short time is expected to cause problems with low-income ratepayers," he said.



A regional council spokeswoman said last night that she thought the ARC had altered its proposed billing cycle to fit in with a city council request. She said the problem of the ARC's financial year starting at the same time as local authorities such as Waitakere had emerged with the regional council sending out its own rates bill for the first time.

ARC Waitakere representative Paul Walbran said the logistics of sending out half a million rates bills made it difficult to accommodate individual councils' requests.

"It's not that we were not sympathetic to them, but we were dealing with a new system," he said.

Auckland City ratepayers have a larger gap between their respective rates bills.

Western suburbs residents will be first in the city to get ARC bills, which are expected this week.

Central city rates bills arrive on August 11 and payment is due on September 22.

Rodney and North Shore residents have already received their ARC bills and are protesting at increases of more than 300 per cent.