Nearly $9m shaved off ratings valuations for Reading sites
The owners of three parcels of land associated with the rundown Reading complex on Courtenay Place managed to cut almost $9 million off their rateable values.
The three adjoined land parcels – on Courtenay Place, Tory St and Wakefield St – were in July 2022 being charged rates based on a combined value of $64.3m.
The rates were based entirely on land value, meaning the value of the buildings, or lack of, did not come into play.
But council figures show the three have since been been revalued at $55.55m – an $8.75m drop.
QV, which does rateable values for the Wellington City Council, has confirmed the reduction came after Reading’s owners objected to their original value but could not give the reasons due to confidentiality rules.
“An independent valuation review was undertaken, and a decision to decrease the land value(s) was recommended,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Reading did not respond to questions yesterday.
The council last week bailed out of a controversial deal with Reading to buy the Courtenay Place land parcel for $32m, which Reading was going to use to fix and reopen the cinema complex, closed since a 2019 structural report.
The council was willing to spend $32m on the land as that is what its valuer said it was worth. But since 2022 and Reading’s objection its rateable value dropped from $29.3m to $28.8m.
Meanwhile, a multi-storey car park on Tory St which was damaged in the 2013 Seddon earthquake and later demolished saw Reading International getting a $27.5m insurance payment. Since 2022, its land value dropped from $17.1m to $11.5m.
Reading’s third property, on Wakefield
St, was earmarked for a Countdown supermarket which never materialised and is now a flat lot used for car parking. Its value was re-evaluated from $17.9m to $15.25m since 2022.
Councillor John Apanowicz, an accountant and one of the architects of the council’s failed land buy, said it was common practice for commercial property owners to object to ratings valuations in an attempt to pay lower rates. Lower rates, and possibly lower insurance, were the only reasons he could think of for owners to get property values lowered.
The council also offers rates remissions for a variety of reasons including people fixing quake-prone buildings or if a place becomes uninhabitable due to natural disasters and emergencies. The council has refused to say if Reading received any other types of rates relief with spokesperson Richard MacLean saying the Local Government (Rating) Act “prevents us from revealing details about individual ratepayers”.
Councillor Iona Pannett, who dubbed the council’s plan to buy the land as “corporate welfare” and opposed it, said the law needed to change to allow it to be released as the burden of rates relief fell to other owners. Councillor Ben McNulty, who described himself as a “swing vote” on the council Reading deal before voting for it in February, previously said he would be angry if he found out Reading was getting rates reductions.
“What is concerning is that property owners such as Reading can not only cause urban stagnation through their failure to invest, but it appears that failure can also have a resultant impact on land value driving down their rates,” he said yesterday.