A group of 19 residents groups would launch a campaign to seek rates reductions for people affected by dual occupancy, a spokesperson said yesterday.
The group, representing suburbs all over Canberra, says that people whose living amenity has been permanent affected by nearby dual occupancies should get a reduction in rates because their unimproved land values had been affected.
The president of the Conservation Council of Canberra, Jacqui Rees, whose council is chairing the group, said the Save Our City Coalition would urge people affected to lodge objections to their unimproved land value valuations at rates-assessment time.
This had been decided at a meeting of the group on Thursday night.
She said there had been cases in the past where the unimproved value of land had been reduce because of reduced amenity because of nearby bus stops or post boxes; nearby dual occupancies were sometimes worse.
“”We have to make the Government sit up and take notice,” she said.
Dual occupancy would usually affect three to five neighbours. As there were about 300 approvals a year of dual occupancy, there could be a lot of objections.
“”There are an increasing number of complaints,” she said. “”People did not mind one or two well-done dual occupancies nearby, but all of a sudden there are a proliferation of low-standard ones, and people are angry.”
The group would arrange a series of monthly seminars leading up to the next election on topics like: appeal rights, the economics of in-fill, multi and dual occupancy (under the new Territory Plan there is no limit on the number of blocks and existing block can be divided into provided the minimum size is met); heritage and joint ventures.
She said people were upset that the 50-50 in-fill-greenfields policy had been imposed without community concurrence.
Another attack on rates came from the Ratepayers’ and Landlords’ Association yesterday.
Its president, Peter Jansen, called for rates to be capped to the consumer price index; be related to municipal services only and not related to land values and the revenue be only used for municipal services and not be used to cross-subsidise state-type services and programs.
He said rates could be significantly reduced if ACTION and ACT Electricity and Water were made more efficient.
The ACTION subsidy took 60 per cent of rates revenue.
ACTEW and AGL visited homes 16 times a year to read meters, using different staff for different meters. If meter reading were contracting out it would be done far more efficiently and cheaper.
Also, non-urgent out-of-hours servicing should be abolished to cut costs
He objected to ACTEW dividends being paid to the Government. It amounted to a form of hidden tax.