Baw Baw’s unfair rating system

The rate notices have been issued and first instalments or lump sums paid. Ratepayers have been informed of the two per cent rate cap, but the fact that it refers to the total rate revenue collected has not been fully understood within the community.

There have been large increases in Capital Improved Valuations of some properties which has not made life any easier for some ratepayers; in fact, made things very difficult.

These increases in CIV have been caused by properties being located adjacent to developments either within or outside of the Precinct Structure Plan areas. In one area there has been increases to a good number of properties between 10 per cent and 24 per cent.

One farm owner has had an increase of $800 and there are others who also had high increases. These revaluations occur annually as required by State Government Legislation.

Some of those properties have a lack of services. Footpaths, kerbs and drainage have not been completed and there is no sewerage.

The valuer does not consider lack of services at all when valuing properties. Therefore, most residences in Warragul/Drouin with access to an expected level of services are valued at the same level as this group with a lack of services.

There are farms including vineyards, and other types of land users who believe this type of speculative valuation, retards their ability to farm, provide for recreation and tourist market as well as food production. This is forcing farmers to consider selling their properties due to the large rate expense.

The Local Government Rating Systems are underpinned and regulated by State Legislation - the Land Valuation Act, 1989 which does not place any value on farms or the importance of the retention of farming, particularly in a prime agricultural area. The Act directs that land must be valued at the current or potential highest and best use either now or in the future. That means that all land must be valued at the potential development value irrespective of the type of current usage of a property

Lack of services in residential areas is not considered by the valuer. It is the role of council to consider this. In the Urban Growth area, the differential is reduced to take account of the lack of services. This reduced differential is of no assistance when the CIV is valued on the potential market value – or sales based on sale of four properties for development purposes.

Incidentally the Land Valuation Act provides for lump sum payments by February 28. Baw Baw Shire has chosen not to allow a lump sum payment by this date.

The Fair Go Rates System Compliance section of the annual budget shows BBS has a capped average rate of $1955. This average rate is the highest in all neighbouring shires from East Gippsland to Pakenham. This, as well as an increase in the number of rateable properties of 780 demonstrates that rates in the shire are excessive, property owners are overcharged and unfairly treated.

Baw Baw Shire Ratepayer’s Association has spoken with candidates nominated for election and there is concern about fairness and equity of the rating system. We must, as a community, contact the Local Government Minister who has responsibility for this legislation. We must inform him of the disconnect between rates and income, the volatile increase in these valuations and the unfair objection process for the rates system amongst other concerns. The Minister has a state-wide Review of Local Government Rating Systems which was conducted in 2019. The review has considered all of these and other issues, and it is currently sitting on his desk. Ratepayers could also contact Member for Narracan Gary Blackwood.

Robert Sinnett Kerry Elliott, Warragul

Need a vaccine

On reading Ralph Slaughter’s letter (Gaz 29./9) I agree about how important it is for vaccines, I started my life in a suburb of Melbourne 1934. I can just remember when all the schools were closed and children were not allowed to mix, as there was a poliomyelitis epidemic.

About 1945 another outbreak (schools did not close) but I saw firsthand what the disease did. One of my cousins aged two years old was struck down, she was not expected to live as she was completely paralysed,. Her treatment was long and painful.

I saw the other side of this disease, the children and adults crippled whilst walking around with callipers and sticks.

We had sanatoriums in Melbourne to take people with the many different infectious disease. They are all gone now, just what we needed with this coronavirus.

I have been through seeing all the suffering, from measles, mumps, chicken pox, whooping cough, tuberculosis, with the kids I grew up with, then my own children, and myself getting chicken pox at age 22.

I am so grateful to all the scientists and the work that has gone into making vaccines over the years; you are my heroes of the world. To see my grandchildren and great-grandchildren not have to suffer. This is the first time they have had to face up to a dreadful disease. I know it is hard for everyone, not seeing each other, but hope you all stay safe till we get a vaccine.

Like you Ralph, I will be in the front of the queue.

Nancy Murphy, Drouin gered environments by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). I believe that the long term environmental and eco-tourism values of the Forest far outweigh any short-term benefit of logging which has negligible return to the local economy and to tourism in the region.

Lindsay Nicholson, Noojee

Trenchant criticism

I agree with the trenchant criticism of Baw Baw Shire councillors in Simon Parsons’ letter ‘Poor governance practices’ (Gaz 6/10).

I’ve written numerous letters to the Gazette about decisions by councillors contrary to recommended refusal of applications for planning permits to build houses on small vacant lots of farming zone land. Early in 2016, no less than four such decisions were made in one council meeting.

The then mayor Joe Gauci subsequently acknowledged that these decisions were inconsistent with state law, but said council wanted ‘more flexibility’, which was being sought in a Rural Land Use Review. What emerged would be a recipe for unbridled development of vacant small lots for residential lifestyle purposes.

Permission for a dwelling on a farming zone lot smaller than 40ha properly requires that the house be necessary for and ancillary to primary use of the land for a permitted commercial farming purpose.

The review proposes that in most of the shire the only requirement would be a ‘legitimate agricultural use’, which evidently excludes only such as keeping horses for riding. Four years later, the RLUR report lies in waiting for the new councillors. I’m pleased at least one

Central Ward candidate, Wayne Farnham, doesn’t ‘want to chop up prime farmland’.

To his credit, Cr Gauci has mainly been guided by planners’ advice in this council term, and now says he doesn’t ‘support the fragmentation of farmland’.

For that he’d get my vote, except I believe he must be held accountable as mayor for the Utopia fiasco and subsequent farce.

In support of Simon Parsons’ contention of councillor ignorance and arrogance, I recall a former councillor, and mayor, claiming that while officers had to abide by the rules, councillors had to listen to their constituents. This is arrant nonsense.

As I’ve pointed out in several letters, in deciding planning matters council is acting as the Responsible Authority and must apply the relevant law disinterestedly, regardless of whether by officers under delegation or by councillors in a meeting.

Applications usually only come before councillors for formal determination when they’re called in, which normally happens in response to lobbying by or on behalf of applicants. I can’t recall a single instance of a call-in being objectively justified in reported arguments of councillors.

Few arguments genuinely rebut an officers’ assessment, and most are irrelevant. The RLUR Report recommends the right of councillors to call in applications be curtailed in the interests of consistent decision-making.

The electors of East Ward, especially, should consider the records of renominating councillors in these matters, if they believe the shire’s farmland must be protected from fragmentation and alienation, as intended in the planning scheme.

John Hart, Warragul