The Ainslie Football Club is taking the ACT government to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (ACAT) to fight a significant increase to its rates bill it says could eat into the money spent on community sport.
The club's chief executive, Simon Patterson, said the rate per square metre for the Alan Ray Oval jumped from about $2.50 to about $50 after a subdivision triggered a re-evaluation of the land's value.
The subdivision was part of the club's major redevelopment of its Ainslie site. It is one of many clubs in the ACT looking to build housing on their land in response to the ACT government's push to move away from gaming machine revenue.
"At a time when clubs are being encouraged to diversify their income streams and invest in community infrastructure, substantial increases in rates risk undermining the financial sustainability of those very facilities," Mr Patterson said.
An independent inquiry into the future of the clubs industry in the ACT recently found the reduction in gaming revenue would prevent clubs from continuing their community contributions, which could include affordable food, meeting spaces and sports facilities.
The report recommended improvements to the planning process, including streamlining planning, licensing and approval processes and harmonising the timing and scale and lease variation charges and rates increases, to help clubs move away from harmful gambling practices.
ClubsACT chief executive Craig Shannon welcomed the finding, saying the planning and revenue systems had become an obstacle to "responsible development".
"Slow approvals, uncertain and sometimes prohibitive lease variation charges, rapidly increasing rates and substantial holding and consultancy costs have undermined the viability of major projects," Mr Shannon said.
"Clubs have repeatedly been encouraged to diversify away from gaming revenue, yet many of the projects capable of delivering that diversification have been delayed, reduced, or abandoned because the cost, risk and time involved became unmanageable.
"Government cannot reasonably demand diversification while maintaining systems that make diversification more difficult and expensive to achieve."
In August last year, the Ainslie Football Club was successful in having a Major Territory Plan amendment approved which would allow it to build a mixed-use development on the north and north-western sides of the oval.
The redevelopment would include a new clubhouse, grandstand and player facilities, as well as terrace houses and apartment buildings.
To "enshrine" the oval as a community asset, and to provide some guarantee to members that there were no plans to develop on the oval itself, the club also sought a subdivision of its land, Mr Patterson said.
The parcel which includes the oval also included a plan to build a childcare centre on the site of the former caretakers' residence.
It was this subdivision that triggered the rate review.
In the ACT, rates are calculated by adding together a fixed charge, which is dependent on the property type, and a valuation charge, which is calculated based on the most valuable use of the land permitted under the Crown lease.
Mr Patterson said the club did not object to higher rates being applied to the childcare centre, because it understood it would increase the value of the land.
However, he said the majority of the increased rates had been applied to the oval, without any consideration of the community value and the already high costs of maintaining it.
"It's not worth anything. There's no government, no planning authority that would approve development on that oval," Mr Patterson said.
"The real worth is that it remains an oval."
The ACT government recently amended the rate notice for the block, reducing the value of the land from $3.1 million to $2.85 million, Mr Patterson said.
However, he said the club had still been unable to get any explanation from the ACT Revenue Office about how the original evaluation was made.
"We're not looking for any specific funding from the ACT government. We're just looking for a fair and transparent rateable value on our oval," he said.
A spokesperson for the ACT government said it was unable to comment on specific taxpayers' affairs, but that taxpayers were provided with information about valuation and assessment through their rates notices.
"Changes to zoning can have impacts on rates liabilities and may increase the value of the property," the spokesperson said.
"The ACT government has consistently advised clubs that they should consider financial impacts of changes to land use and include them in the financial assessment of any proposed development."
The club and the ACT government will go to mediation in August.
