The council for a tourist city in Queensland, which has seven retirement villages, shows no care for residents as it creates new rules that will cost $60+ million p.a. nationally.
The Retirement Living Council has been on the residents’ side in an escalating war of words with Cairns Regional Council since April after the council revealed it was going to change its rates rules for villages and residents.
The council wants to now apply the minimum general rate to each unit in a retirement village, as opposed to charging the village as one dwelling, as has been the case.
Each resident will need to pay the council’s minimum general rate of about $1,072 from next financial year, which is an extra $300, or $7 a week. This will then increase annually.
For the 77 units at Oak Tree Retirement Village Cairns, the new charge will be $82,613.30 in total - an increase of 800%.
Aveo’s The Parks Retirement Village has154 units, with about 130 single pensioners, mostly women aged over 80 with no capacity to earn any more money.
And the fight is on. The Cairns Post has published 11 stories on the rates war since April.
The council, led by both the Deputy Mayor and Mayor, doesn’t care. In fact, Deputy Mayor Brett Olds says he knows why his council’s plan has caused such a backlash with residents, and operators, stating:
“Their fear will be, if this council goes through with it, all the other councils will (as well).”
Mayor Amy Eden (pictured) admitted last Thursday she has personally been checking out the social media pages of complaining residents. This piqued the interest of the ABC: why would the Mayor be researching personal posts of her elderly constituents?
Oak Tree Retirement Villages CEO Christine Gilroy said villages already paid for the installation of roads, lightning and garden maintenance, and that it would be a "double hit to those residents to pay that again".
Against the backdrop of electricity prices jumping by double digits, the $300 extra for rates will be difficult to swallow for many residents. Remember, the average age of village residents is 80, and you need year round air conditioning in Cairns.
The RLC conducted a survey of 167 of the residents and found 34% said they would struggle to cover essentials under the proposed rates change, while 16% simply said they could not afford the increase.
"There are always going to be a percentage of ratepayers that really struggle to pay their rates," the Mayor said. "That is just the way that it goes." At age 80+?
She also told the ABC that financially stretched residents should talk to the village operators about hardship support.
But here is the thing. With most councils admitting they are struggling to pay for services, such as roads and pavements, expect an avalanche of copycats if Cairns goes through with this proposal.
If 200,000 village homes nationally have to pay an extra $300 a year, that is $60 million that mostly pensioners will lose.
The council does not seem to care, but the Retirement Living Council Executive Director Daniel Gannon does, and has not let up through two months of weekly jousts, advocating for the rate increase to be held off for a year to allow “genuine and proper consultation”.
It appears to be not enough. The council will meet to adopt the 2025/26 budget on 25 June. If adopted, expect many other councils to follow suit quickly. Not good.