Grove bid to stop footpath charges

Jessica Benton
OCEAN Grove ratepayers are protesting a council plan to charge them for new footpaths on a main thoroughfare.
Thacker Street resident Pamela Brown is collating a petition to fight City of Greater Geelong’s proposed special charge for footpaths and road widening.
Ms Brown said council wanted to charge ratepayers thousands of dollars each for a footpath they did not need.
“Thirty-nine properties along Thacker Street will be affected by the charges, so I hope to get signatures from those home owners,” she said.
“I don’t see a need for a footpath, to be perfectly honest.”
Ms Brown said she believed Thacker Street would be the first in a series of special charge schemes to build footpaths around town.
“I think there are plans to do footpaths all over Ocean Grove but the people of Ocean Grove don’t want footpaths.”
Council plans to charge Thacker Street and nearby residents $302,204. Council will contribute $210,550 to the $512,754 total cost.
Thacker Street’s John Hughes, who faces a $3822 charge, said he did not believe the project would give ratepayers value for money.
“Where we are we won’t have the same as the residents west of Presidents Avenue because of an old drain at the front of our properties that council has been told not to touch. I’m not too pleased about this, I think it’s a waste of time,” Mr Hughes said.
The City could not confirm it had plans for more footpath special charge schemes for Ocean Grove.
A City statement said distribution of charges was based on the frontage width of allotments.
Some property owners faced bills of more than $10,000, with estimated costs ranging from $1181 to $10,092.
Ratepayers can comment on the special charge in written submissions to the City before February 22.
The statement said council would consider the submissions before making a decision on the proposed scheme at the May 11 meeting.
The Ocean Grove plan comes as Jan Juc residents fight a Surf Coast Shire plan to charge them $1.8 million of a $2.2 million project to build footpaths.