RATES in the City of Joondalup will increase by 2.5 per cent for the 2016-17 financial year.
Councillors voted at Tuesday night’s meeting to apply differential rates for the City’s 2016-17 draft budget.
The increase is the City’s lowest in 15 years.
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READ NOWThis is also the second year in a row the City has not increased its refuse charge.
In May, the council voted to advertise the proposed rates increase for 21 days.
Submissions closed on June 13 and only one submission was received. It raised concerns about the City’s proposal to set the differential rate for vacant residential land at twice the rate for improved residential land.
A council document stated this was in keeping with previous years “in an effort to promote development… thereby stimulating growth and development in the community”. At Tuesday’s meeting, Cr John Chester said he disapproved of differential rates because he believed it was a form of “social engineering”.
“By setting rates twice as high for vacant residential and industrial land and then penalising those landowners, it is an attempt for development which may be good for the City but it may not suit the landholder,” he said.
Mayor Troy Pickard said the City had been using differential rates for many years and if not applied this year, there would be a once-off increase of 7 per cent, therefore increasing rates by 9.5 per cent.
“I think differential rates is a useful tool for the City of Joondalup to spread the rate burden across our community,” he said.
However, he agreed with Cr Chester’s point.
“Unfortunately for homeowners that have recently purchased land and are in the process of building, they are impacted by differential rates,” he said.
“It’s unfortunate we don’t have an ability to differentiate the time frame that an individual has held on to the land.
“The intent of differentially rating vacant land is to encourage people who have sat on land in residential areas for decades to develop or sell it so somebody else can develop it to ensure we maintain the critical mass we need in suburbs to ensure the retention of schools, the success of small business and many other social fabric indicators.
“I’m happy to call on the State Government to seriously consider the ability for local governments to vary the differential rate on vacant land based on the length of tender of that land.”