Adelaide City Council administration has written to three of its councillors clarifying that businesses on university and hospital campuses do, in fact, pay rates.
At a public council meeting on Tuesday evening, north ward councillor Phillip Martin posed a question on notice: “Has the administration investigated the possibility of imposing rates on commercial enterprises operating from rate exempt premises such as universities?”
The Lord Mayor read a response by the administration, to the effect that it had investigated the question, and that – except where prohibited by separate legislation – rateability of land is determined based on occupancy, rather than ownership of land, and that individual commercial enterprises within any given property are subject to separate rates assessment.
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Cr Martin, Deputy Lord Mayor Houssam Abiad and area councillor Sandy Wilkinson each expressed concerns during the meeting that businesses operating on university or hospital campuses could have an unfair advantage over other city businesses.
On Wednesday morning, InDaily submitted an enquiry about the councillors’ concerns to council administration, without response, and published a story at noon detailing the concerns raised by the councillors at the meeting (and expanded upon by Abiad and Martin on Wednesday morning).
The story also contained comment from Adelaide University, the University of South Australia, two businesses and SA Health.
On Wednesday afternoon, the administration contacted the councillors, and InDaily, to advise that tenants on university and hospital land do pay council rates, albeit indirectly, as outgoings, billed direct to the tenant, or built into the gross rent charged by the institution.
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