A LONG-RUNNING dispute over maintenance costs for Waterways residents has finally been resolved after Kingston councillors decided council will now pick up an annual tab of $310,000 for mowing and upkeep of shared areas in the suburb.
Homeowners in the sprawling 46-hectare suburb that includes vast tracts of parkland and manmade lakes have long argued they should not pay for council services provided elsewhere as a matter of course.
At last month’s public council meeting outgoing councillor John Ronke successfully proposed the time had come for Waterways homeowners to receive the same services from council as ratepayers elsewhere in Kingston.
Cr Ronke said the additional cost impost on Waterways residents was a legacy of council being a financial “basketcase” in 1997 when Portland House Group wanted to build “an environmental oasis together with a vibrant community”.
He said council had to make some “tough decisions” and maintenance standards were under pressure so council at the time decided to place a levy on Waterways homeowners so the housing estate could be built.
Cr Ronke said council’s stronger financial position now made it feasible to axe the levy.
“No other community in Kingston pays a maintenance levy for the same standard of service anyone else in Kingston gets.
“It’s not a gated community. Every resident in Kingston has the opportunity to visit and spend time there.”
Waterways Owners Corporation chair David Flew welcomed council’s decision to immediately end the levy.
“We are extremely pleased and happy that the decision to bring this long-running issue to an end has finally occurred,” he said.
“Special thanks to Cr John Ronke for proposing the resolution, to Cr David Eden for seconding and supporting it, and to Cr Tamsin Bearsley for all the work she did to ensure this came to council in a timely manner.”
Cr Rosemary West believed the move to axe the levy, before a council officer’s report into the matter was completed, set a bad precedent for future developments.
“This was a development in the Green Wedge that really never should have been allowed,” she said.
Cr West noted the maintenance costs were being shifted to all Kingston ratepayers who may not enjoy the luxury of an abundance of open space near their homes.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2011 used Census data to determine that Waterways, with 2160 residents at the time, rated higher than Toorak, Brighton and Canterbury or any other suburb in Melbourne in an index of socio-economic advantage.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 5 October 2016
