Tonight's Lismore City Council ordinary meeting has a great deal of inner CBD businesses holding their collective breath.

There will be a vote on a 'Proposal to Reduce Business Inner CBD Rates' to assist in the stimulation of the CBD. The amount is not insignificant either, a 50% reduction. In dollar terms we are talking about $4,432 per year.

When you talk to business owners who have had a tough time with the 2017 flood and paying rates that are disproportionate to the rest of the business world in Lismore and surrounding towns you can feel their hope.

Deb Ray who owns Music Bizarre on Magellan Street said "it will allow me to survive". Deb added "I've been running with reduced stock since the floods, slowly building it back to where it was before so the 50% reduction would mean I could buy more stock like cd players for people to listen to the music in-store. Plus pay my running costs which has been very tough of late".

Matthew Healey from Daley's Homewares & Monogramming in Woodlark Street said "this would allow me to invest back into my business like spending money on my website as well as keeping my prices as low".

The problem with a lot of businesses is that they don't own their buildings so their financial fate is in the hands of the landlords. Will they pass on the full savings or even part of the savings to the business owners so they can reinvest in their companies which usually means better buying options for us the consumer?

There is a small catch of course.

Council cannot afford to lose $1 million just by reducing rates, they do need to raise that money from somewhere else. In this case, there are three options that will be voted on with Option 1 the preferred.

This is where the costs will be spread across a broad range of the community in increased rates from Farmers ($87 per year), Residential ($48-55), Businesses Urban ($166) and Business Other ($63-$87).

Will you be willing to pay a small increase to stimulate the CBD?

If you are interested in why the Lismore Inner CBD rates are the highest in the Northern Rivers, we have to go back to 1997/98 when the Council introduced a levy to pay for the implementation of security measures like CCTV cameras. To do this they introduced a three level rate measure Inner CBD, Urban and Other.

As you know, rates are determined by the value of your land. While other areas went ahead like Goonellabah where the land did actually increase, the CBD in most cases stagnated or reduced in value. So, when you compare the rates to land value you get the following discrepancy.

After the 50% reduction, the graph looks more balanced.

Now you can see why quite a few business owners are holding their breath while they wait on this vote tonight.

NEWS: Tonight, Council meets remotely - and you can watch