There is unrest among seniors in Victoria’s Gippsland region, 135km east of Melbourne.
600 residents living in Benetas’ Dalkeith Heights Retirement Village Traralgon, the community-run Latrobe Valley Retirement Village Morwell, The Range Retirement Village Moe (pictured) and The Yinnar & District Housing Development’s Greenside Retirement Complex Yinnar, feel they are being treated unfairly and want changes to Latrobe City Council’s forward municipal rating plan.
Owners and residents of homes in each of the four retirement villages are rated for services like basic maintenance of footpaths, roads, street lighting, nature strips, gardens, and similar services, which village managers already provide and bill their owners for separately each month.
“We have made our case for an equitable rating treatment because quite simply we are charged for standard services to our homes and properties which council is not required to provide or does not deliver,” Dalkeith Heights Village Traralgon Resident Committee co-ordinator Ben Guzzard said.
The Dalkeith Resident Committee found a number of councils in the Melbourne metropolitan area and major regional centres like Latrobe already offer municipal rate reductions or ‘Differential Rating’ between 10 and 25%.
This is on top of the aged pension concession to the standard residential rate in recognition that councils have only reduced or limited-service obligations to these types of estates.
“We are confident that most local residential living developments come within this situation and thus should be treated fairly,” Ben said.
Latrobe City Council conducts an annual budget process that includes a review of all differential rates, including those pertaining to retirement villages.
Additionally, council maintains a Revenue and Rating Plan that must be reviewed every four years, with the next review scheduled for completion by June 30, 2025.
The draft budget is expected to be presented at the council meeting in April 2025.
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