As residents of Sunset Strip are discovering, special charge schemes can be expensive and traumatic, writes Anne Heath Mennell.
THEY may not be as big an issue as the Hastings Port or hospitals, but special charge schemes affect many people. I know from bitter experience how destructive, expensive and traumatic they can be. Every time another scheme pops up in the local press, I wince and feel sorry for the people involved.
Many rural shires have hundreds of kilometres of unmade roads. Bass Coast is no exception and the council has a priority list of roads which it is steadily working through. Currently, the only way a council can seal these roads is via a special charge scheme. This is a regulated process based on the principle of “user pays”. Councils are constrained by this process, which is laid out in great detail with timelines, notifications, formulae for working out costings, etc.
As the folk in Sunset Strip are discovering, there is much about the process that is problematic. Such schemes often result in conflict between neighbours, great stress and uncertainty over a long time, and financial worries that lead some people to sell up and move out.
The process is inherently undemocratic. Instead of everyone involved having a “vote”, only one “vote” per title is allowed. If a couple disagree, only one view will be taken into consideration. If someone has multiple blocks on one title, they also only have one “vote”, despite being up for greatly increased costs. Costings are calculated by applying a formula based on land measurements. So someone on a single block, attracting a contribution of, say, $10,000, has the same “vote” as someone with five blocks on one title, who will be up for $50,000.
I have put the word vote in inverted commas as no one actually has a vote. If someone does not respond to the council’s invitation to have their say, they are assumed to agree to the special charge scheme going ahead. Anyone wanting the scheme abandoned has to make a submission to the council. So 50 per cent of those saying “No” have to put pen to paper to be counted, but the “Ayes” don’t even have to reply. When many people in Bass Coast are not full-time residents, it can be difficult for them to be across all the details and it is understandable if they don’t feel engaged with the issues.
People in metropolitan areas do not generally ever have to face a SCS. Fringe areas developed recently have infrastructure provided by the developers and costs are absorbed in property sale prices. People in rural areas are not so lucky. Many people move to rural areas because they like being in the country. Existing gravel roads are part of the rural character and people “buy in” accordingly only to find, sometimes years down the track, that others suddenly decide they don’t like their gravel road any more and lobby their council for their road to be sealed. And so the nightmare begins!
There has to be a better way. I would like to see rural councils working with the Municipal Association of Victoria and their local MPs to find a way that is not antagonistic, destructive of communities, a financial nightmare, undemocratic and inequitable.
I would like to see this issue ‘on the table’ at this election and I would like to hear what all our candidates would DO (not what they think!), if elected, to improve this situation. What ACTIONS would they initiate and how quickly after election?
Anne Heath Mennell lives in Tenby Point, where a special charge scheme was carried out in 201
Many rural shires have hundreds of kilometres of unmade roads. Bass Coast is no exception and the council has a priority list of roads which it is steadily working through. Currently, the only way a council can seal these roads is via a special charge scheme. This is a regulated process based on the principle of “user pays”. Councils are constrained by this process, which is laid out in great detail with timelines, notifications, formulae for working out costings, etc.
As the folk in Sunset Strip are discovering, there is much about the process that is problematic. Such schemes often result in conflict between neighbours, great stress and uncertainty over a long time, and financial worries that lead some people to sell up and move out.
The process is inherently undemocratic. Instead of everyone involved having a “vote”, only one “vote” per title is allowed. If a couple disagree, only one view will be taken into consideration. If someone has multiple blocks on one title, they also only have one “vote”, despite being up for greatly increased costs. Costings are calculated by applying a formula based on land measurements. So someone on a single block, attracting a contribution of, say, $10,000, has the same “vote” as someone with five blocks on one title, who will be up for $50,000.
I have put the word vote in inverted commas as no one actually has a vote. If someone does not respond to the council’s invitation to have their say, they are assumed to agree to the special charge scheme going ahead. Anyone wanting the scheme abandoned has to make a submission to the council. So 50 per cent of those saying “No” have to put pen to paper to be counted, but the “Ayes” don’t even have to reply. When many people in Bass Coast are not full-time residents, it can be difficult for them to be across all the details and it is understandable if they don’t feel engaged with the issues.
People in metropolitan areas do not generally ever have to face a SCS. Fringe areas developed recently have infrastructure provided by the developers and costs are absorbed in property sale prices. People in rural areas are not so lucky. Many people move to rural areas because they like being in the country. Existing gravel roads are part of the rural character and people “buy in” accordingly only to find, sometimes years down the track, that others suddenly decide they don’t like their gravel road any more and lobby their council for their road to be sealed. And so the nightmare begins!
There has to be a better way. I would like to see rural councils working with the Municipal Association of Victoria and their local MPs to find a way that is not antagonistic, destructive of communities, a financial nightmare, undemocratic and inequitable.
I would like to see this issue ‘on the table’ at this election and I would like to hear what all our candidates would DO (not what they think!), if elected, to improve this situation. What ACTIONS would they initiate and how quickly after election?
Anne Heath Mennell lives in Tenby Point, where a special charge scheme was carried out in 201