Bush Fire Management Overlay (BMO) & Property Valuations

Posted by Unknown at Thursday, February 21, 2013 | 0 comments

Some interesting points came out of council’s forum meeting last Tuesday night. First we had a good introduction into the BMO and how it is applied to the planning process. The Yarra Ranges as we know is locatd in a very high risk area, the BMO is going to be a huge influence into where we can and can’t develop. Ultimately the decision to approve or reject a planning permit rests with council’s planning department, however the BMO gave us a great insight into complexities and processes involved in high risk areas. The CFA is the ultimate “authority” when it comes to the application of the BMO, however the planning department must also take into account a wide range of other factors including landslip, designs, etc.

Property Valuations

Next we had a guest speaker from (VGV), who spoke about land valuations and how they are calculated. Quite a complex process. What came out of this overview were that property valuations were done every 2 years (last one done on the 1/1/12) so next valuation process will be 1/1/14. There were 3 ways valuations are assessed:

1. Site Value.

2. Capital Improvement Value. (YRC utilises this assessment for the calculation of rates)

3. Net Annual Value.

There are over 60 elements required to be collected and updated in order to value your property, some of those include but limited to:

· Australian Valuation Property Classification.

· Rental data (for commercial and industrial properties).

· Property descriptions

· Factual date, land and building areas, building details.

· Sub market groups

o Soil type

o Land use

o Location

o Region

So this was a good understanding of the way they value our properties. Unfortunately there was no explanation into the recent valuation hike where many experienced dramatic increases in valuation which caused some concern in the community. It was discussed, this was a rare event and that future increases “shouldn’t” be so dramatic (let’s hope not).