After months of, often intense, debate - the decision on the Port Stephens Council proposed Special Rate Variation (SRV) of 7.5 per cent per year over seven years is set to be handed down early next week.
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A spokesperson for IPART (Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal) has confirmed with the Examiner that a decision on one of the Port's most controversial and divisive issues in decades is expected to be handed down on Monday, May 13.
Since it was first proposed last July, the SRV proposal has divided the Port Stephens community between those who are supportive of a rate increase in order to fast track around $100 million in infrastructure and projects, and those who are opposed because they cannot afford such a rate hike.
The majority of Port councillors have supported the increase, with mayor Ryan Palmer espousing the economic benefits to the community through investment and jobs.
"Let's invest more in paths and cycleways, roads, drainage, sporting facilities, tree management, depots, foreshores and the list goes on," he said.
The opposition has been led by West Ward councillor Giacomo Arnott, who labelled the SRV a 'rotten proposal' which will add to the hardships people in the community are already facing, "smashing household budgets and forcing families to struggle to put meals on the table".
Submissions from ratepayers to both the council and IPART have been overwhelmingly in opposition, to the point where both Cr Arnott and State Labor MP Kate Washington last month called on the council to abandon the proposal altogether after it was revealed by IPART that the majority of its 685 submissions had been against the increase.
A number of former councillors - including Bruce MacKenzie, Geoff Dingle and Brian Watson-Will - have all strenuously and publicly opposed the rate rise.
Mr Watson-Will said that the council had been described as Fit for the Future due to its cash and property assets.
"It is a mean-spirited grab for money from ratepayers who cannot afford to see our council rates income wasted on consultants, shopping centres, court losses, sports fields and facilities," he said.
Early in the discussions the Examiner featured two longtime Port residents, Corlette's Margaret Wilkinson and Anna Bay's Joan Frost, to get their perspectives on the proposal, so have their views changed?
Ms Wilkinson, a retired pensioner and tireless worker for the community having volunteered her time with the Corlette Parks Committee, Civic Pride, TRRA, VIEW and garden clubs, was in favour of a rate rise.
Eight months on and Ms Wilkinson is still in support but says she was concerned about the amount of money taken away from coastal erosion projects, including Conroy Park, and road repairs from the original draft.
"My biggest disappointment was with council's decision to place the consultation period for the list of projects so close to Christmas. I think the east ward has been done over, we have already seen Section 94 funds disappear," she said.
Mrs Frost, the Port Stephens 'Woman of the Year in 2005 who has lived on acreage off Frost Road since 1955, says she has listened to the arguments for and against and was still dead-set against any rate rise.
"We are pensioners and I know so many other pensioners who are struggling. Why does the council need to fast-track these projects ... by the time they are built with pensioners' money many of us will be gone," she said.
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