Wyndham pensioners and retirees have urged the council to consider lowering their rates to ease their financial burden.
The municipality’s retirement villages made a submission on the council’s proposed 2014-15 budget, asking it to consider creating a differential rate for their homeowners.
The group, led by Tarneit Skies Retirement Village, argued that retirement village residents did not use the same facilities as other ratepayers.
Spokesman Graeme Dowlan told a council meeting last Wednesday the villages provided most of the services needed by their residents.
He urged the council to provide “rate relief” to homeowners who were pensioners or self-funded retirees by offering a rating differential.
Point Cook pensioner Elizabeth Simpson also urged the council to reconsider its rates, saying they were her highest expense. “I’m on a fixed income and my council rates are my highest outlay at $4.01 a day, almost five times my daily costs of cooking, water heating and general heating,” she said. “It’s an amount I can’t control. I can reduce my electricity consumption but not my rates.”
The submissions were among 13 made on the budget.
Others included a request for funding for new courts and lights at Cambridge Tennis Club, money for this year’s Weerama Festival and support for a food court and multi-level car park near Werribee or Hoppers Crossing station.
The council will consider the submissions before adopting its final budget on July 7.
