Broken Hill councillors will be travelling to Sydney this week to ask the Valuer General why newly released land values are so varied across the city.
An urgent Notice of Motion was been tabled by the Mayor at a committee meeting to object to the latest land valuations applied to properties in the city.
As reported in the Barrier Truth last week, the Valuer General recently unveiled the Silver City’s latest land values which revealed some increasing by as little as 40% but others by more than 100%.
Those valuations flow through into the rates paid by each household, though the council are at pains to point out they don’t receive any more money out of the total rates pie.
“We just want to make it clear we’ll be fighting to ensure there’s more equality across the board when it comes to rates,” says Mayor Tom Kennedy.
“Council only ever collects a set total amount of rates each year, but the amount each household contributes to that overall yearly total is directly linked to the value of their land,” the mayor points out.
Broken Hill City Council intends to do its own investigation into the Valuer General’s assessments, and letters of objection are to be sent to the city’s state and federal MPs, along with relevant ministers and shadow ministers asking them to apply pressure.
Broken Hill councillors are set to meet with the Valuer General in Sydney this week to discuss the issue.
“We need a fairer outcome, and perhaps even a review of the model used to determine land values as the disparity in a city the size of Broken Hill is simply too large in my opinion,” Cllr Kennedy said.
“You might have one family paying $1000 in rates, and another family only a few blocks away paying double or triple that amount,” says Mayor Kennedy
“All households receive the same level of service from Council, so we need to find an outcome that spreads rates more evenly across the city.”
