Capel residents to be hit hard in wallet at rates time, despite council decreasing rate in the dollar

Revaluation of Capel properties has seen the worth of residential lots increase by an average of 48 per cent and despite the council lowering its rate in the dollar, residents will need to fork out more money on rates this year. Impacting more than 6000 residential properties in the shire, the average rate will increase from $1757.56 to $2030.29 — a 15.5 per cent bump. This is despite the fact the shire-set rate in the dollar will decrease by 18.32 per cent for residential properties. The huge increase was confirmed on Wednesday night at the Shire of Capel’s special council meeting to pass the draft budget. Rates are estimated to bring in $18.7 million for the shire, which is up from $15.1 million in the previous financial year. As part of the figure, more than $864,000 will be raised through the Dalyellup specialised area rates with the cap remaining steady at $218.54. The huge bump in property evaluations by Landgate is due to delayed revaluations because of COVID, effectively leaving GRVs on hold for more than five years. The recount usually occurs every three years, but the extended pause led to the nearly 50 per cent rise for residential properties, 27 per cent rise for industrial and 16 per cent for rural and rural commercial lots. Only commercial properties escaped the GRV reckoning, with their evaluation only moving up by four per cent. Significant costings in the budget include a $2.1 million increase in staff costs and more than $18 million to be spent on capital works programs. Part of the capital works includes $5.7 million for the first year of construction of the new Dalyellup Multipurpose Community and Youth Centre which is fully funded through grant allocations. Capel residents can also expect an increase in the fees and charges with a 3.5 per cent rise in all non-statutory fees and a 4.16 per cent bump to waste and service charges. Capel shire president Doug Kitchen said the council were offsetting some of the rise in property evaluations. “This adjustment in our rate in the dollar will hopefully go towards easing that financial burden, particularly those in our residential zone which has seen quite a large increase,” he said. “But I think it’s worth noting that while this adjustment does partially ease that financial burden there will be those that will be impacted differently due to the individual circumstances of which the GRV is applied. “Some may have gone up quite a lot within that and some might not have moved very much, but I think this is the right move in trying to distribute that burden across the whole rate base and make it more fair across the local government.” The draft budget was passed unanimously by the council.