WA charity run retirement homes win rate exemption

The Western Australian government has decided charity-run retirement homes will remain exempt from local council rates.

The government rejected recommendations made by the Local Government Advisory Board, which argued councils should be entitled to charge rates for independent living units.

Uniting Church Homes chief executive officer, Vaughan Harding, says his organisation is very relieved that its 29 aged care facilities, which are home to more than a thousand residents, will not be hit with the extra charges.
Mr Harding said an end to the rates amnesty would have stretched retirement village budgets to breaking point.

“Because we are organisations that are there for the community’s benefit, any monies that we make go back into the community again,” he said.

“In those set-ups if you had a contract arrangement where you passed the cost on to residents who could afford to pay, I guess the impact would not have been great, but in those circumstances where you were unable to do that the impact would have been very significant.”