Gympie council to slug Southside ratepayers with new levy for sewerage

A new plan to finally finish the troubled and long-delayed rollout of the Southside sewerage has finally been revealed, but the move is not expected to be met with unanimous joy. Read what’s about to happen and have your say in our poll:

Southside ratepayers not connected to the city’s sewerage network will find themselves slugged with a new levy under plans to finish the controversial and long-delayed scheme.

Under a new policy adopted unanimously by Gympie councillors at Wednesday’s meeting in Goomeri, properties awaiting connection to the system will be subject to a special levy to help cover the cost of the work.

The levy would be applied to the rates bill for 20 years.

The exact cost and which properties it will be applied to are not yet known.

The council has previously paid the entire cost of connecting Southside properties to the network, a deal which proved controversial with some councillors.

This included paying for the house drainage lines which then became the property of the landowner.

The rollout of the 16-stage Southside sewerage program was stalled after stage seven, amid concerns about the increasing costs of the work.

The staff report tabled for councillors said it was the inclusion of these drainage line which “significantly increased” the cost of rolling out the program.

In 2014, Gympie Regional Council tried to force the cost onto ratepayers but backflipped one year later due to public backlash.

The rollout was then delayed in 2018, amid concerns over the ever-increasing cost.

The council has secured $3.54m in State Government funding to deliver stages eight, nine and 10 of the program.

However this will only cover about 60 per cent of the price tag and “does not include the cost of house connections, or decommissioning of the properties’ septic (or) treatment systems”.

The report says the levy will cover the cost of any loans the council needed to take out to pay for connecting the properties to the network.

Councillor Bob Fredman, who was a council director when the scheme was first introduced, welcomed the plans but said the council had to expect “discontent”.

“If someone else got (connected) free in the past … it’ll be unpopular,” Mr Fredman said.

Warren Polley, whose division includes the Southside, said it was a welcome move which would provide the suburb’s residents with a long overdue service.

Mr Polley said the Southside was popular because of pros including “the space … the nice open wide roads, you can live on half an acre”.

Unfortunately, the lack of sewerage service and need for backyard septic tanks was an ongoing drawback.

Councillor Warren Polley welcomed the council’s new plan, saying the region’s ratepayers should not be expected to foot the entire bill for something that’s only going to benefit a small number of people.

“You can’t really expect the rest of the Gympie region to be paying for something that’s only going to benefit a small number of people,” Mr Polley said.

Mayor Glen Hartwig agreed the rest of the region’s ratepayers should not be footing the bill for infrastructure that was ultimately owned by private individuals.

“The rolling out of sewerage for these areas actually adds significant financial improvement to the properties,” Mr Hartwig said.

“The question we asked ourselves as councillors was: should ratepayers as a whole subsidise the financial benefit of a small group of ratepayers?

“The answer we came back to was ‘no’.”

People may not be happy “given the decisions made in the past”, he said, but “two wrongs don’t make a right”.

“Just because what I think was a wrong decision was made in the past, doesn’t mean we should continue down that path.”