The association said yesterday that all ratepayers received the same services so the cost should be the same. The only variation should be to reward conservation, as with the new water charges.
The president of the association, Peter Jansen, said, “”By and large the lower-income households are concentrated in the inner areas, yet the government is hitting them the hardest because land values in these areas are rising faster.”
The Government should look at other ways of charging. In parts of Queensland, for example, people paid rates according to the value at the time of purchase. Eurobodalla charged a flat rate for everyone based on a $65,000 unimproved value and added a small amount for values beyond that.
He said also that people in some suburbs would be unpleasantly surprised if they thought their rates would go down based on the suburb-by-suburb average values published by the Revenue Office.
In Kingston, for example, the average unimproved value fell by 18.66 per cent. But this was nearly all due to redevelopment. For example, last year’s single $400,000 block became this year’s redeveloped 10 units at $60,000 each, lowering the average UV of the suburb, but not at all affecting the UV on existing dwellings whose rates would stay the same or even rise.