Moreland City Council: Central Coburg Business Association small business tax targets Victoria Street Mall Coburg

Small business owners have reacted angrily to a Greens council’s decision to renew a controversial tax, claiming they get nothing for their money.

Traders in Coburg's Victoria Street Mall have savaged a new small business levy imposed by the Moreland City Council. Picture: Hugo Timms

Small business owners in Coburg have reacted angrily to a council decision to renew a controversial ‘Special Charge Scheme’, saying it will encourage them to move their offices and businesses away from Moreland.

Businesses and property owners around Coburg’s popular Victoria Street Mall received letters from Moreland City Council this week informing them the scheme — a tax that property owners or businesses pay in order to fund the Central Coburg Business Association (CCBA) — had been renewed.

But many business have argued that the CCBA rarely or if ever visits them, advertises their businesses or maintains the precinct, which are among the organisations stated purposes.

“I can confidently say I have never received any support from the CCBA,” Halil Gokler, principal solicitor at Haitch Legal, told Leader on Tuesday.

Mr Gokler, who has based his business out of the Victoria Street Mall for the past seven years, has been ordered to pay $1115 by the council this year to fund the CCBA.

In a letter to the council in March, the CCBA lobbied for tax’s renewal, on the grounds that it allowed them to support live entertainment, maintain the attractiveness of the area and “regularly visit” businesses.

Mr Gokler said he had never observed live music at the mall, nor had he been visited by and CCBA representatives

In April, Mr Gokler was forced to hire a van at his own expense along with a Moreland councillor to clean rubbish from the mall that was creating a health hazard, after depot workers took industrial action.

“I cannot see any reason to pay this levy,” he said.

Mr Gokler said the tax has prompted him to see where else he could base his business.

The scheme has been in place since 1997, and is renewed every five years.

This levy has been reimposed after it was suspended as Covid pandemic battered the global and Australian economy.

According to the council, the highest charge under the scheme will rise by nearly $500 next year to more than $1900.

The council said the scheme covered 282 properties.

Vito Campagna, who has owned a cafe beside Haitch Legal at the mall for 22 years, told Leader he “threw the letter (containing the levy) in the bin”.

Like Mr Gokler, he had never observed live music at the mall, and said he couldn’t recall being visited by the CCBA.

“I don’t even know who they are,” he told Leader.

“How much money are they spending changing the name of Moreland?” Mr Campagna said.

The council has come under significant criticism for spending $500,000 on changing the city’s name, due to its links to a 19th century slave-owning estate in Jamaica.

The CCBA was contacted for comment.