He said last week that he would be making a ministerial statement yesterday about betterment. Yesterday he said a further announcement would be made in September, but he would take the opportunity to clarify issues after “”inaccurate or malicious” statements in the media.
Betterment is the charge levied against a leaseholder in return for a change of purpose in the lease in recognition of its changed value from the old use to the new. Under present law a remission of up to 50 per cent is available depending on the age of the old lease.
Mr Wood acknowledged that a greater return could be made if when assessing betterment the old value did not include an element for potential redevelopment.
He said a higher return could also be obtained if no remissions were permitted. However, some have argued that development would be slowed if higher betterment were charged. They were complex issues.
Trevor Kaine (Lib) argued that the ACT had a de-facto freehold system anyway. Once planners had a greed to a land-use change there should be no betterment, he said. Betterment was only appropriate in true leasehold when leaseholders paid annual land rent, and no-one wanted to go back to that.
Michael Moore (Ind) said Canberra still had leasehold and betterment should be charged. He found it ironic that the Liberals who generally supported landlords and who would be outraged at a tenant breaching a lease would not support the Commonwealth as landlord getting proper return for its land.
The Canberra Conservation Council reacted to Mr Wood’s ministerial statement by saying it was an early-warning ploy to give time to developers who had great access to government marshal their arguments and lobby against higher betterment with threats of leaving town. Development industry spokespeople were unavailable for comment last night.