Council seeks second chance for businesses

Published on 15 October 2020

Council has requested a new two-month window to allow local industrial businesses to object to a recent spike in industrial precinct land values.

The request was made during a meeting between Council and representatives from the Valuer General's office on Tuesday.

Industrial land values rose by around 55 per cent after revaluations were undertaken by the Valuer General in late 2019, however the Valuer General said they received only one objection to local land value changes.

As Council is required to use the unimproved land value when calculating rates, the rise in land values directly correlated in a big increase in rates for industrial businesses.

Mayor Darriea Turley AM said Council has requested a further two-month period be given to industrial businesses for a second opportunity to object to the land value increases.

"The Valuer General’s office has taken that request on board and said they'll get back to us, so we'll see how that develops," said Mayor Turley.

"The information provided in the meeting was quite informative though, it showed that market forces are clearly at work in the industrial precinct with land values increasing because of the push-pull factors of supply and demand; industrial land is more expensive because there is less of it available for sale."

Chair of Council's 'Our Economy Key Direction Working Group, Cr Branko Licul, said high industrial land values were also an issue elsewhere in NSW.

"It had been suggested that the increase in unimproved land values was purely due to generous prices paid for land purchases made as part of major infrastructure projects such as the wind farm and W2BH pipeline, but it turns out sale prices of land are quite high right across the industrial precinct," he said.

"The problem isn't unique to Broken Hill either; industrial land is outperforming other land categories right across the State."

Council wishes to again reinforce that it did not collect any additional ‘bags of money’ due to unimproved land value increases in industrial land.

Industrial properties were however required to contribute more to the annual rates total collected from businesses as their property values increased significantly compared to other businesses across the city.