The Dunedin City Council has "withdrawn" plans to change the way some rural properties are rated.
On May 1, the council wrote to some landowners informing them their farm properties were being designated as "lifestyle" blocks and they would be rated as residential rather than as farmland.
The change would mean their rates would rise from 0.1872c in the dollar to 0.2087c.
The council fielded more than 100 letters, emails and phone calls and several owners of small blocks of rural land also complained to the Otago Daily Times.
As a result, the council sent out another letter last Thursday to 600 property owners explaining that it would retain the status quo for the 2009-10 year.
"Hence, the course of action described in the 1 May letter is withdrawn," the letter said.
Rural real estate agent John Lagan, who first raised the issue publicly, was happy with the immediate outcome.
"Good on them, and they deserve some credit for backing down, but at the end of the day I reckon they are going to open a can of worms that they just won't believe."Ted Neill, who farms 5.7ha in Otokia Rd, agreed and also expected "more trouble down the track".
"They're going to come back at us.
"I don't trust them.
"They're just going to change things around to suit themselves."
He believed changing the designation of small blocks of farmland like his to lifestyle, with a residential differential, would have far-reaching consequences.
It could affect his ability to dig an offal pit or to buy farm-size quantities of herbicide.
Council financial controller Maree Clarke yesterday said the lifestyle rating issue was sparked by Quotable Value through changes it made on behalf of the Valuer-general.
"It wasn't something we were looking at from a rating point of view.
"All we were trying to do was communicate to the ratepayers what the implication was for them of the change that was imposed on us by QV."
Ms Clarke said QV determined which properties fitted the lifestyle category.
It ruled lifestyle blocks had a residential differential.
"Before they changed the rules, we had lifestyle blocks that were categorised as either residential or farmland.
"When the Valuer-general put in this category of lifestyle block it automatically flicked everything into the category of residential."
The council would consider the issue and consult ratepayers through the annual plan.
"Lifestyle" was a land use code but could, perhaps, become a differential alongside the existing three differentials in Dunedin of residential, non-residential and farmland.
Those who believed their rural property was a farm rather than a lifestyle block needed to take the matter up with QV, she suggested.
Dunedin has 2341 properties categorised as lifestyle.
What is a lifestyle block?
The Valuer-general's definition of a lifestyle block:
". . . generally in a rural area, where the predominant use is for a residence and, if vacant, there is a right to build a dwelling.
The land can be of variable size but must be larger than an ordinary residential allotment. The principal use of the land is non-economic in the traditional farming sense, and the value exceeds the value of comparable farmland."
