18 June 2012

Rate Rises

Some thought about rate rises.
Generally Council aims to keep rate rises to the CPI, however, the cost rises that Council experience are usually greater than CPI and in fact Local Government calculates it's own price index. Council went to public consultation with a proposed rate rise of 5.1%. Very few people chose to question this rise and I have had only 3 enquiries about the supposed rise. When Cr Bob Schnell raised the potential impact of the carbon tax Council had to rethink what the impact of this would be. At the current time Council will not make a final decision until the Full Council meeting on June 25th. The Valuer General has assessed the value of the vast majority of homes in Millswood, Clarence Park and Black Forest as reducing in value about 5%, some have reduced by as much as 10%. However, if you have significantly improved the value of your home or you own vacant land your valuations will have increased by quite a lot.  A rate rise of between 5.1% and 5.6% (allowing .5% for the carbon tax) will see a rate rise on an individual property of less than 4.5%. This is achieved by higher rates being charged on Commercial properties and on what is described as growth (2 for one developments, home extensions and  new apartments).  The only bonus in this might be that your water rates might not increase as much as you thought they would if your valuation has decreased.
You comments are more than welcome.

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