Paying rates, others benefitting

KEYSBOROUGH residents say they shouldn’t have to pay higher rates to maintain nearby open space when non-locals were taking advantage of the facilities.
But City of Greater Dandenong says spreading out the cost would mean a one per cent rate increase across the municipality.
At the 29 January City of Greater Dandenong Council meeting, three questions from the public urged the council to remove the surcharge.
Dheeraj Sachder said council rates for newer areas of Keysborough were too high compared with other parts of the suburb.
“The open spaces are public areas open to all public, so why should selected blocks only pay the other levy?” he said.
“While the open areas are more than normal, the density of housing is also much greater due to smaller blocks.
“This means the revenue per square area is the same.”
Sharon Tan asked the council to “please consider removing the maintenance levy as it will cost financial hardship to residents of Keysborough”.
Greg Emmi said; “increasingly residents from surrounding suburbs are using the open spaces, so why should we be the only ones to pay?”.
Corporate services director Mick Jaensch said the maintenance levy matter would be presented to a future council briefing session for discussion as part of preparing the 2013/14 budget.
“Obviously, until the council has had that discussion I am unable to give a response to this question,” he said.
“Bear in mind however, and I say this for the benefit of the gallery, that the residents of these estates have 20 per cent open space compared to five per cent in traditional estates.
“Council is responsible for costs of maintaining that 20 per cent open space.”
Mr Jaensch said while there was an argument that such an open space was open to all members of the public, “it would be fairly difficult to say that all other members of the public use the same amount as those who live adjacent to those estates”.
“Should the council choose to remove the maintenance levy and spread the cost of that revenue across all residents in Greater Dandenong, the cost to all residents will be equivalent to just under one per cent rate increase prior to any other rate increase that would be normally applied by the council.”