Perth Voice Interactive

BAYSWATER council is poised to hit land-bankers with big rate increases in an effort to force them into developing their vacant lots.

At Tuesday’s meeting, councillors voted to seek approval from local government minister John Carey to apply differential rates to vacant commercial and residential properties for the first time.

The council is proposing to raise rates for vacant commercial properties by 34.9 per cent, and for vacant residential blocks by 19.3 per cent, with deputy mayor Elli Petersen-Pik saying residents had made it clear they were sick of the gaps in the city’s commercial precincts.

But most of Tuesday’s debate centred around a proposal to split residential and commercial properties, with businesses facing a 7.43 per cent increase and homeowners 3.8 per cent.

The introduction of differential rates was recommended in a report by the Paxon Group, and brings Bayswater in line with most of its neighbours.

But councillor Dan Bull argued the increase faced by businesses was “radical”, even though an amendment by Cr Petersen-Pil had reduced it from an original target of 8.4 per cent.

Baked in

“This is not just an incremental increase,” Cr Bull said.

“You have to remember that it’s 8.4 per cent this year, and this amount is baked in into the future.”

Cr Bull said it meant businesses, who were facing some of the toughest economic conditions they’d faced in years, would now be subsidising a more modest rise for residential ratepayers.

He believes there are other levers available to the council to keep rates low, saying they’d worked over the last decade, where each increase had been kept below 5 per cent.

Mayor Filomena Piffaretti said the move to differential rates would put the council in a more financially sustainable position, but noted the Metronet works on the Bayswater train station had hit businesses hard.

She noted a large number of objections to the rate increase had come from the Bayswater town centre.

“Of the submissions that did not support rates for commercial properties, over 70 per cent were specific to businesses in the Bayswater town centre due entirely to the financial hardship they have experienced over the past few years due to the state government’s Metronet works in Bayswater,” Ms Piffaretti said.

“I understand the challenges.”

She’d proposed a concession for those businesses which was carried through, though Cr Bull warned that might just land those businesses with an even bigger rates bill in following years if it was removed.

Cr Nat Latter warned that the differential rates aimed at commercial landlords were misplaced, as the costs would be passed onto tenants, whether directly or bundled into their rents.

“Hiking up commercial rates creates a disincentive to open a new business in this area, and it may contribute to businesses closing or moving,” she said, adding Vincent council’s commercial rate was significantly lower than Bayswater’s.

Hiking

Cr Latter said businesses didn’t use many of the council’s services like the library, so it was unfair to be saddling them with higher bills than residents.

But she and Crs Bull and Sally Palmer were the only dissenting voices.

The council can still adjust the proposed rates if it gets approval from the minister, as nothing is set in stone until this year’s budget is adopted.

by STEVE GRANT