STAFF WRITERS
SIX hundred permanent residents of four over-50 Lifestyle Retirement Villages in the Latrobe City Council area are seeking equitable treatment in their forward municipal rating plan.
Owners and residents of homes in each of the four local villages are rated for services like basic maintenance of footpaths, roads, street lighting, nature strips, gardens, and similar services, which village managers already provide and bills their owners for separately each month.
Dalkeith Heights Village Traralgon Resident Committee co-ordinator, Ben Guzzardi believes there should be a reduction.
“We have provided all nine newly-elected councillors with a professionally prepared submission seeking a reduction as a differential municipal rate in the annual rate bills which the local village residents receive for their properties,” he said.
“We have made our case for an equitable rating treatment because quite simply we are charged for standard services to our homes and properties which council is not required to provide or does not deliver.”
Mr Guzzardi said residents were being unreasonably charged.
“It is really a case of Latrobe City Council charging village owners and residents for services they are not required to provide or fund,” he said.
“The only council service delivered to the local residential villages is waste management and garbage services each week.”
The Dalkeith Heights Resident Committee engaged professional help to prepare its submission to all Latrobe City councillors.
Petitions were also circulated to all Latrobe residential lifestyle villages, and a virtual 100 per cent endorsement was received from residents requesting fairer treatment.
On investigation, the Dalkeith Resident Committee found a number of councils in the Melbourne metropolitan area and major regional centres like Latrobe already offer municipal rate reductions or ‘Differential Rating’ between 10 and 25 per cent.
This is on top of the aged pension concession to the standard residential rate in recognition that councils have only reduced or limited-service obligations to these types of estates.
“We are confident that most local residential living developments come within this situation and thus should be treated fairly,” Mr Guzzardi said.
“As an example, the small Greenside Villa Residential Village in Yinnar has 11 residential living units each separately rated at the struck residential rate.
“If instead this was a residential development, it would have only three rateable house properties, but council delivers 11 rate notices to the residents in the units, so it is something of a windfall in terms of the rate income for our council.”
Dalkeith Resident Committee is requesting councillors formulate the addendum to the council’s revenue and rating plan and rates income plan for the next five years, and that a moderate reduction in the rate applicable to residential living projects occurs at a timely opportunity.
“We are looking to the newly inducted nine councillors for fair treatment when they make this important decision at the February meeting of Latrobe City Council,” Mr Guzzardi said.
The submission to Latrobe is being made with full support of petitioning residents from Dalkeith Heights Retirement Village Traralgon, Latrobe Valley Retirement Village Morwell, The Range Retirement Village Moe and Greenside Villa Retirement Complex Yinnar.
Latrobe City Council conducts an annual budget process that includes a review of all differential rates, including those pertaining to retirement villages.
Additionally, council maintains a Revenue and Rating Plan that must be reviewed every four years, with the next review scheduled for completion by June 30, 2025.
“As part of the annual budget process, council will again evaluate differential rates for retirement villages,” a council spokesperson told the Express.
The draft budget is expected to be presented at the council meeting in April 2025.
