Rate alterations with no notice to ratepayers

Let’s understand what Council have done with respect to their robbing Peter to pay Paul decision.

In late May Council advertised a new Rate in the Dollar (RID) figure of 11.1208 (up from 10.9371 last year).  The advertising period was for 30 days during which time ratepayers had the opportunity to submit a submission to Council.  The overall Gross Rental Value this year was only 2.85% however as is normal some GRV’s were up above that figure and some below.

Council in their “wisdom” have decided to gerrymander the result by more than doubling the RID increase from 11.1208% to 11.3506% from the 2014/15 figure of 10.9371% which effectively increases rates to the lower GRV properties to give a subsidy to the higher GRV valued properties.  There are no free lunches.

There has not been any suggestion that the values are wrong (and if they were property owners have the right of appeal) and yet Council have chosen to massage the higher increase rated properties downward at the expense of the rest of the ratepayers without any advertising or right of redress by ratepayers.

So in short you’ve had your RID increase more than double from the advertised figure and the properties that have through normal market forces had a reduction in their GRV are now paying more than double the original RID advertised figure to subsidise some higher GRV rated properties.  There is no logical reason for this gerrymandering of our rate’s calculations.

Max Correy
Concerned Ratepayer