[Cherie Muir]

Hi Lee

A lot of councils have policies based on separate occupancy (that work well for most cases) although our Act clearly says that Domestic Waste may apply separately to each ‘rateable parcel’ irrespective of the policies we adopt. I’d say that your retirement village is only one or a couple rateable parcels at most?

Like you we have a policy of charging waste on occupancy despite the Act and in the past couple years our practice was brought to the attention of the OLG. (At the time we were pushing a second charge on to dual occupancy properties.) The OLG worked with us – agreeing in some circumstances and not in others …eg; they understood why we were changing on occupancy in the case of a 12 unit residential flat building that was not yet strata subdivided, but tut-tutted us for pushing an extra set of bins on granny flats. Ultimately the OLG said something like … ‘take caution when not covered by the Act – always work with the owner and charge additional services in agreement with the owner’.

That’s my experience anyway …. where it is reasonable go for it and where there is room for negotiation do that. Does your policy say that it may be varied and by whom from time to time? Maybe the waste manager could come to a Win/Win arrangement that gets documented well.

Food for thought.

Regards
Cherie