STRUGGLING businesses in Mount Gambier Central will likely be assessed for rate relief on a case-by-case basis after elected members foreshadowed opposing dealing with the shopping centre as a whole entity.
At Monday night’s People and Place committee meeting, elected members foreshadowed council would agree to waive or refund equivalent to one quarter of the rates for businesses which meet its criteria.
Mount Gambier Central centre manager Jane Read had contacted council to request tenants be assessed as a whole entity after providing evidence Mount Gambier Central Trust was in receipt of JobKeeper payments due to the COVID-19 economic downturn.
The trust pays rates on behalf of each tenant and requested businesses be considered as an entire entity and any rate relief it received would be passed onto tenants.
However, council chief executive Andrew Meddle advised elected members to be fair and consistent in their approach by assessing each individual business separately.
“Council would be ill advised to try and pick businesses from the list of assessments without the necessary information to ensure such a business clearly met the council’s criteria,” Mr Meddle said in the report.
“Council should not make a decision en bloc when relating to the individual circumstances of each assessment.”
Cr Sonya Mezinec agreed businesses which could still trade and did not meet the criteria should not be provided with relief under a blanket approach.
“I do not think they should be getting rate relief and that is not in the spirit of what we intended,” she said.
“Doing it on a case-by-case basis is a much better way of doing it I think.”
Mount Gambier Mayor Lynette Martin also amended the recommendation to remove vacant shops from consideration.
“I do that on the premise these shops, I’m assuming were already vacant before COVID-19 and not as a result of it,” Ms Martin said.
Council will consider the issue again at its June monthly meeting.
