Yass Valley Council slugs not-for-profits with unexpected rates bill

A volunteer-run hall, a church that feeds the hungry and a small tennis club that can only use half its courts because it can’t afford to restore the rest, are among Yass Valley not-for-profit community groups ordered to pay hefty council rate rises.

For one of the hardest hit, the Bowning Community Hall, its rates bill from Yass Valley Council (YVC) is accruing daily and now heading towards $4000. Volunteer president, Stuart Atkins, said it was forced to ask the community, which owns the hall, for help.

“We just can’t afford it,” Mr Atkins said of the hall which is built on land donated by the community. “We’d have to keep the hall in almost full-time use to pay that. As volunteers, if we did that, we wouldn’t be able to continue to fundraise to keep the place going.”

Mr Atkins said when the rates were imposed for 2023-24, his group put in a financial hardship claim, “but they knocked it back because they said we had the means to raise money”.

“We did some research and learned that we could be exempted if we were a charity,” he said. “So we have applied for that through the NSW Government.”

Other volunteer groups have since lodged claims for exemptions like Bowning or are waiting on the result before they take action.

For Pastor Gary Brown, his Vine Church in Yass has also been hit with an unexpected rates bill. He said when he and his partner and another couple set up the church almost a decade ago, the bank would not lend them money as a church so their names had to be on the contract.

“Until recently, the rates were waived for us and we had a really good relationship with the council, but now they’re saying we should be paying the business rate because it’s in our names.”

Mr Brown said the church would pay its rates, but that $3000+ owed, would have otherwise gone to the free Christmas dinner and the 150 hampers it gave away each year. The church also provides free food weekly for people struggling in the Yass Valley.

“We are a 100 per cent volunteer group. I’m the pastor and I don’t get paid – I’m a 52-year veteran of the Royal Australian Navy. We self-fund here, we don’t draw any wages.”

For the Yass Lawn Tennis Club, it’s a similar story. President Ray England said the rates bill hit his vounteer-run club hard.

“We’re a not-for-profit,” he said. “How are we expected to pay this? We have five courts here but only three of them can be played on because the other two need maintenance work.

“I thought councils were supposed to help not-for-profit groups like us.”

Executive Officer of YVC, Chris Berry, said by law, council had to rate all properties unless there was a specific exemption in the Local Government Act 1993.

He said a “significant increase in land values has triggered the rates increase”, adding that setting land values was not the job of Council but of the State Valuer-General.

He said the YVC did have a program, until a few years ago, out of which the council paid the rates for community groups.

“This was stopped several years ago as halls managed by the community set their own fee to cover their outgoings,” he said.

Asked why the not-for-profit groups had been slugged with such a hefty rates bill, Mr Berry said: “All properties, unless specifically exempted under the act must pay rates – there are only four rating categories (farmland, residential, business and mining) and as community halls do not fit the description of farmland, residential or mining, they are classified as business.

“The Vine Church is not exempt as the property is owned jointly by several individuals and not as a church.”

He said the YVC did ask the NSW Government at the time for the Vine Church to be categoriesed as a church, but the “response was no”.

Yass Valley singer-songwriter Daniel Kelly will perform a concert, Waive the Rates, at the Bowning Hall on Saturday 20 July from 6:30 pm. Admission is free, but guests are invited to make a donation to the Bowning Hall to help pay its rates.