Change of use valuations - a joke?

Elena,

I think that’s a safe bet most of the time…

just can’t help but thinking they’re scamming something somehow…

I must admit I found the change of use valuation a bit odd, I remember looking at the converting the Gateway at Lyneham into 300 odd apartments and its value was only a marginal increase after.

I could only think they value it at the price of a clear block, before they build their “improvements”

Given that the 25 year commercial leases were thrown away you’d imagine improving the revenue positions without strangling development would of been a ACTGov priority.

Hopefully someone in the know might let the rest of us understand how it all works.

I’d love to see developers being held to that – i.e. only allowed to charge a total of $5k rent over, say, the next ten years.

I thought valuations were an indirect way of calculating rates, and rates are meant to pay for council services. So with dual occupancy there’d be a doubling in the use of services. $5k hardly covers that. So I’m confused too.

can someone please explain to me how it can cost $17k to put together a DA to convert carports (ie already approved structures) to garages (whacking on 2 walls/mesh dividers and a door on each one).

it is out and out discrimination against those who live in a complex – every owner has only one single carport which is being converted, if you lived on freehold land and were converting your single garage you would be exempt from a DA.

It may be that the potential to have two dwellings (or additional floor space) was already factored into the valuations, and the additional $5000 just represents the change from near-certainty to 100% certainty.