KEY POINTS:
A Tauranga City Council candidate is proposing a rates scheme he says could help elderly homeowners throughout the country struggling with crippling rate increases.
Graham Skellern, one of 28 candidates standing for a general seat in the coming city elections, wants rate rises limited to the equivalent of
the consumers price index (CPI) for pensioners who own their own home.
Speaking at a public meeting yesterday, Mr Skellern said rising property values coupled with rates increases of up to 20 per cent were making life difficult for elderly homeowners in Tauranga.
"The beauty of my scheme is that people can carry on living in their houses in their retirement without the threat of being priced out of their homes by rising rates," he said.
Mr Skellern's proposal, called SkellyVision, is based on a similar scheme in California.
Under it, superannuitants would make a claim to the council to stabilise their rates at the existing level.
The maximum increase the homeowner would be required to pay until the house was sold, or he or she died, would be the CPI equivalent.
The rates would then revert to the standard system, and if other senior citizens bought the house, they could make a claim based on the current levy.
Mr Skellern, 55, has calculated that 20 per cent of Tauranga's 45,000 households would qualify.
A senior business writer at the Bay of Plenty Times newspaper, he said rates affordability was one of the main issues facing elderly homeowners not just in Tauranga, but throughout the country.
Government statistics showed nearly 62 per cent of people aged 65 and over had little income other than superannuation.
While admitting that Tauranga had a proportion of elderly ratepayers who were wealthy and unlikely to suffer as a result of rate rises, he said the majority were "feeling the pain".
"Something needs to be done to give them a bit of relief."
Mr Skellern said SkellyVision would not affect pensioners' eligibility for rates rebates and he believed the scheme would not substantially disadvantage the council.
Only about $700,000 a year would be lost as a result of removing elderly homeowners from the current rating system.
Tauranga MP Bob Clarkson was at the meeting and said he had spoken to Mr Skellern about the scheme after seeing it working overseas.
However, several of the group of about 30 people who attended the meeting said that while it might help 20 per cent of ratepayers, it would disadvantage the other 80 per cent, who would be left to pick up the bill.