Uproar over fake waste charge
September 21, 2022
By Taylor Clyne
As business owners begin to receive their new Council rates, uproar is bellowing from the hills regarding the 1500% increase in a waste charge for short term accommodation (STA) owners.
The varied waste charge was approved unanimously by Councillors at the July Council meeting seeing an increase in charges in for commercial properties in Derby, Winnaleah and Branxholm from $900 to $3020 per property.
Whilst commercial properties in Bridport, Scottsdale, Tomahawk and any other Dorset location were increased from $120 to $1920.
If people have multiple properties, the charge remains the full amount for each dwelling.
The mailout penned by the general manger Tim Watson stated the charge was actually aimed at protecting long term rental availability in the region.
“Council has formed a policy that the removal of long term rental opportunities from permanent residents should be discouraged by requiring a greater financial contribution from property owners offering STA.
“The mechanism used to seek this financial contribution will be the varied waste management charge,” he said.
The policy is being labelled a money grabbing scheme by those affected and misleading as it does not have anything to do with actual waste collection.
Mayor Howard confirmed this after much back and forth with members of the public at the Council meeting on Monday night.
“We normally deliver the Council budget in June, but we couldn’t make the numbers add up, we needed to find some more money as there was a whole in the budget,” he said.
“We had to raise budget funds one way or another and thought the best way that we could do that was have STA providers pay their share of the tax burden or slug the whole of the community with a massive rate rise something like 8 or 9 percent.”
Short term accommodation owner Larry Cohen of Derby said Council need to call it what it actually is.
“It’s a tax to collect money from one sector of the community,” he said.
“This dishonest and deceitful approach is outrageous, there was no notice whatsoever to business owners and it’s being called a waste charge when it’s not about that at all.”
Mr Cohen explained that his legal advice said it was not lawful to increase a waste charge if no extra services are being provided.
“From what I’ve been told my bins are not being collected any more often, there is no extra service, you cannot justify that.
“My charges went up from $120 to $3020 per property and I have three dwellings so that’s over $9,000 without any warning at all.”
LARRY Cohen said the Council held five information sessions with Derby business owners regarding their new Bookeasy accommodation platform and not once was waste increase mentioned.
“They talked about getting rid of the sponsorships, they talked about the advantages of Bookeasy but not once mentioned the increase in waste charges.
“All these people who came out to those sessions could have been told. This is bad policy, this is bad communication, we could have had a team approach.
“There are other ways to collect this money without this us versus them mentality.”
Varying explanations on where the money would be going have been given to STA owners with the most common answer that the funds will be used for trail maintenance in Derby.
Bridport STA owner Emma Lade asked if there were options to recoup funds from mountain bike riders instead of charging business owners.
“As a resident of Bridport and STA owner it sounds like a lot of my waste management charge is going to fund the mountain bike trails, is there other options to recoup funds for this,” she asked.
Mayor Greg Howard said Council were now looking at options to charge interstate and international visitors to ride the trails.
“We are certainty looking at options to be able to charge riders to ride the trails.
“Not necessarily locals or Tasmanians but we are certainly looking at a way of charging people and how we might be able to do that,” he said.
Ms Lade also questioned if one of the three new trail maintenance works crew positions could circulate the campgrounds to check people were paying.
“Why can't we make this mandatory like they do in the campground at Bridport.”
Mr Watson said that wasn’t feasible and the current honesty policy would recoup around $30,000 in revenue as is.
Minister of Local Government Nic Street said his office was aware of community concerns regarding the increased waste levy imposed by Dorset Council.
“I appreciate that Councils need to raise revenue to support the delivery of a range of local services to their community.
“I have, however, requested that the Office of Local Government look into the current arrangements associated with the increased waste levy introduced by Dorset Council and the Blue Derby accommodation booking service and provide further advice,” he said.
At the completion of the public question time Councillor Edwina Powell stated she had misread the original papers and, on that basis, had supported the motion back in July to introduce the charge for STA owners.
“I suppose when I read the papers, I read it as $120 up to $3020, I now realise I read that wrong and it said ‘to’.
“I am uncomfortable with the arrangement, and I think there is room to review this,” she said.
“Can we bring this to the next workshop for further discussion?”
Mayor Howard said it would require a majority decision of Council and they would need to rescind the full rate resolution and start again.
“I’d like to foreshadow a motion for that at the next meeting,” Cr Powell concluded.