The decision that’s been delayed four times over the past ten years will finally be voted on tonight in Lismore City Council chambers.

The Special Rate Variation (SRV) which will potentially see a 25% rise in rates for Lismore property owners will be voted on tonight - after being postponed at last Tuesday’s general council meeting 

Lismore City councillor Elly Bird said the SRV vote was delayed because of the bushfire emergency and the absence of some councillors at the meeting.

“The best decision was to delay the vote,” Cr Bird said.

“It’s still not known how it will come out this evening, but the fact remains that Lismore has significant infrastructure problem that needs to be addressed.”

Lismore City Council has applied for the SRV because it is "unable to provide its current services without increased revenue" and will use any extra revenue raised “to rebuild more roads and undertake increased gravel road maintenance”.

Council has also reported that additional funds will be used to improve the local economy by enhancing the CBD and riverbank areas and provide incentives for new businesses to open.

Councillors will be voting on three rates rise options and Cr Bird said she had not yet finally decided which way she would vote.

“All decisions come down to the moment but I’m not afraid to say that Council’s infrastructure backlog is a serious issue,” she said.

“I know how hard we’ve been working on dealing with it and it’s a problem that’s not going away.”

A special rate variation (SRV) allows a council to increase its general rates income above the annual rate peg of 2.5%, as set by the NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART). 

The SRV has been open for discussion through two rounds of community consultation over the last few months.

The SRV options include sticking to the rate peg set by IPART asking for a staggered increase of 7.5, 9.4, 3.9 and 3.2% increases over four years, or an increase over two years of 17 % in the 2020/21 financial year and 6.9% the following year.

Cr Bird said option 3 was the option Council’s staff were recommending to councillors, which is an increase spread over four years.

The meeting that begins at 6pm in Council’s Goonellabah chambers is likely to see a big turnout of local residents keen to hear the debate.

Cr Bird said she still hasn’t been told if the meeting will allow public access, which gives residents a change to have their say on the issue.

“The public had ample opportunity to speak at last week’s meeting and we have been hundreds of submissions that Council has already carefully considered,” she said.

“This is the most significant decision we’ve made in my whole term and I’m sure councillors will have a lot to discuss.”

Councillor Neil Marks said he’s going into the meeting with an open mind.

“Hopefully someone has a bright idea of what we will do,” he said.

“This is one of the hardest decisions ever and we’ve delayed it four times already since 2010 - that’s why we’ve got to where we are.

“We knocked it back in 2010 because of art gallery funding and we’ve not a funded community consultation on it as a way of not dealing with it, so now is crack number four.

“We need $5.4 million a year to do the work we need to get done. 

“If we vote no to the rate rise, we need to then say ‘come back to with $5.4 million worth of cuts to Council’s budget’.”