HAWKESBURY Council staff faced the fury of a handful of residents angry their rates have gone up at a meeting in Windsor on Wednesday night.
Oakville residents took the opportunity of a face to face meeting with Council general manager Peter Conroy to express their displeasure at seeing their rates rise recently.
Recently, Hawkesbury Council changed the way it calculated rates, placing a much greater reliance on land value. The NSW Valuer-General also recently gave Oakville residents a hefty land value increase.
Some of the residents claimed their rates had more than doubled, while others asked what value they were receiving in exchange for such a hefty rise.
“What do we get for the extra 120 per cent we now have to pay?” one resident asked.
The meeting was one of a series Council is holding as it puts its case to the community for a Special Rate Variation (SRV).
Council changed the way it calculated rates in June. While many residents likely saw their rates go down, some went up, and in some cases substantially.
A potential SRV is different to the recent rate restructure.
An SRV would see Council’s total yield of rates raised above the basic rate-pegging level.
As the Gazette reported last week, Council hopes for community backing for an SRV in order to improve services and upgrade assets such as roads.
At the series of meetings Council is holding, staff explain how rates are collected and tell the community exactly where Council plans to spend the extra money – if an SRV is approved.
Mr Conroy, who joined Hawkesbury Council in May, told the meeting on Wednesday night that Council had an excellent plan for the extra money.
“This is the most comprehensive plan for what a Council is going to do that I have ever seen,” Mr Conroy said.
The plan lists, to the street, where the extra money will go.
Mr Conroy said after the meeting that people at previous meetings seemed to appreciate Council demonstrating where it would spend its money.
As for the angry Oakville residents, a meeting has been set up with the NSW Valuer-General.
The Valuer-General recently issued new land values and the ‘typical’ rural block in Oakville went up by 45 per cent according to the Valuer-General’s website.
Mr Conroy pointed out that Council has no control over land values, and the revaluation was part of the why their rates had gone up so much.
One resident pointed out, however, that while Council had no control over the Valuer-General, it did control how much reliance was put on land value when calculating rates.
The Mayor Mary Lyons-Buckett said she hoped the meeting with the Valuer-General proved fruitful.
“As stated, an example of the impact on rate increase from the rate restructure is only a small proportion of the increase, with big land increases being the major contributing factor,” she said.
“It is acknowledged that some land valuations seem extreme and certainly worth investigating trying to have them reassessed. Hopefully this can be sorted.”
