Well for many years the Wellington City Council has charged ratepayers who beautify or build garages over Council embankments or roadside verges anything from about thirty to a few hundred dollars a year. This peppercorn rent reflected the more or less nil value of the land to anyone but the person owning the property adjoining it.
Then some councilors had a bright idea. Why not calculate the license fee on the value it would have if it belonged to the licensee? After all a verge in Kelburn must be worth more than an embankment in Melrose. Everyone must see the justice in that.
Well they didn't. Submissions poured into the Council. One homeowner at the hearings pointed out he paid rates of $1300 but the new license fee for his garage and the embankment he kept neat and tidy would be $1800 a year. He said the whole thing looked like a money grabbing exercise to him.
But was it? The next episode will reveal all - or almost all.
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