| Mobile population rates high |
| By Anthony Radford
15 per cent of Bendigo’s ratepayers live outside the municipality
ALMOST 15 per cent of the City of Greater Bendigo’s ratepayers live outside the municipality, the highest percentage of any regional city.
A new state government report shows that 13 per cent of the people who pay rates in the council area don’t call it home.
Greater Geelong (11 per cent), Ballarat (eight per cent), Wodonga (eight per cent) and Mildura (nine per cent) have much lower percentages.
However, councils surrounding Bendigo have higher percentages, including Mount Alexander (26 per cent), Loddon (21 per cent), Mitchell (21 per cent) and Campaspe (13 per cent).
Fiona McKenzie of the Department of Planning and Community Development said most of the non-residents would be people who have second homes in the region.
“Bendigo as a local government area includes some rural development areas such as Heathcote,” she said.
“The areas also have a tradition of peri-urban development, which is what we called tree changers before we called them tree changers.”
The report was aimed at capturing mobile populations, something the census fails to do.
‘This is a starting point, rather than answering any questions,” she said.
“With each piece of research we are building a stronger picture of the patterns and characteristics of mobile populations and, from this, improving our understanding of the implications for planning and local service provision.”
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