HOW TO FIGHT A "SPECIAL RATE"

Council's are levying special rates for everything from road sealing to bike paths to advertising.

This is ON TOP to normal collected rates.

People may or may not want the works or activities proposed by council, but the 'special' rate means the charge will be COMPULSORY.

Unless you know how to stop it. (SEE BELOW)

The rates are levied in this way usually because council has no funds to do the work, 

or feels it can out-source the cost of certain activities to a group with a 'perceived benefit'.

The benefit is often impossible to measure, and often comes down the the opinion of a council officer. Sometimes, all monies levied are handed over to a private association, like a trader's association, which is then not monitored by council very closely at all, and which also can claim 'commercial in confidence' when ratepayers ask to see the financial records, expenditure or other details of activities.

Example 1:  COMPULSORY PAVING of PARADISE: In a rural shire, even if a sealed road is unwanted by over 85% for residents in a peaceful beach-side back street,  council can force residents to pay $10K+ per household 'special rate' for kerb and channel, sealing and paths.Surely this should come from rates? And if no residents actually want the works, why does council insist of raisng money on top of rates to execute these works?

Example 2: COMPLUSLORY ADVERTISING LEVY: In a city shire, a local advertising campaign that lumps a business in with all kinds of irrelevant local connections can be a detriment for many, even completely irrelevant to many who are wholesalers, exporters, business-to-business operations, but if council says you'll benefit, there can be no argument.

Compulsorily levied, the 'special rate' can be then given to a non-transparent entity like a trader's assocation, committeed and controlled byjust 6 traders with a vested interest of  their own.

Levied $500 minimum per business - and all you get is a listing on a lame 'Council-sanctioned' website - a negative association for many businesses. Participation in street fairs requires a further spend of up to $600 for the stall alone, excluding staff, set-up, etc. This is effectively a hike in rates of $1000+ minimum per year. Unwanted, unmeasured, unnecessary, undemocratic. The bulk of the collected 'rate' goes to the committee who do as they please with it.

These schemes favour the self-interested, greedy few over the vast majority of stakeholders 

who are too confused, busy or ground-down by this sort of scheme/scam to defend themselves. The real benficiaries are the consultants to whom the projects are given, often known to those commissioning the works, and council officers or committee members employed in the scheme. 

How to stop a special rate.

1. You will need 51% of rated entities to object BEFORE the rate is declared by council. Act as soon as you get a 'proposal letter'.

2. Council will strike a short deadline for objections, making it almost impossible for you to succeed.

3. So request an extension to the deadline for objections asap. and keep requesting.

4. Create a flyer explaining the issue and the need for 51% objectors and the date for cut-off.

Explain that objections are useless unless there are 51%. Those who do not object will unwittingly make others pay. Add an objection slip, naming the scheme, notice of objection, facility for name, signature, date and importantly a 'reason why'. This last indiviualises each objection slip and therefore makes it NOT a petition.

5. Get/buy/borrow a realestate data base of all rate-payers/property owners/ businesses whichever is relevant and do a mass maildrop of your flyer and an objection slip.

6. Doorknock and explain, get objection slips signed and collect these. Councils will NOT tell you how many people have objected, citing 'privacy' laws, so you will need to keep your own tally.

7. Study the Local Govt Act, Section 163 (1) of 1989 and make sure the council and their agents have acted FULLY in accordance with the law.

8. Write letters to council objecting and include a request in your letter to be heard at the Council hearing which they will hold on the matter.

9. NOTE: once the scheme is "declared" as a special rate, it is out of Council's hands. They will be powerless to undo the declaration, by law.

They will abandon you and your complaints to VCAT.

By this stage, it's too late for you. Your only recourse is VCAT, which MUST rule on an obscure equation of works/proximity/vallue=benefit, and cannot really evaluate your individual situation. Few succeed here.

10. Tell as many other ratepayers in as many other shires as you can.

Council should be there to advocate for the ratepayers

Council should allow 3 months for objections, use plain English in their letters, and clearly explain the 51% mechanism for objections, which they do not do.