Grant District Council has approved ‘peppercorn’ leases for two new agreements exceeding the five-year exception requirements.
The agreements relate to a portion of The Rocks Tavern car park at Carpenters Rocks and Donovan’s Community Hall.
Council proposed to lease each site for a period of 10 years for $1.00 per year.
An agreement has also been made with the Port MacDonnell Maritime Museum.
The annual fee would be $550, plus 20% of admission income over $3000.
Accordingly, council was required to undertake community consultation before entering into the agreements.
The public had 21 days to make their views known, however it was reported no formal response was received when the consultation period ended on February 9.
Council chief executive Daryl Whicker said there was an area of backlog that council was looking to rectify.
“The reason why council is looking at these leases, there has been change to community land or is outside of policy,” he said.
The report was compiled by Governance Officer Brittany Shelton.
In her report, Ms Shelton said council may grant a lease or licence over community land so long as it was compliant with a relevant Community Land Management Plan (CLMP).
In the event that a lease or licence is to be granted outside of these parameters, then council must comply with requirements under the Local Government Act.
“All agreements are drafted to include a lease or licence period 10 years, which exceeds the five-year exception to the requirements,” Ms Shelton said.
She noted the Rocks Tavern lease was not for the tavern building but for a portion of the carpark.
“It was previously leased to them directly from the Crown for a number of years for a ‘peppercorn’ lease,” Ms Shelton said.
“It lapsed since the Crown handed that responsibility back to council. Effectively they have been using the carpark without paying any fees for a substantial period of time.
“They do not necessarily derive any income from the car park itself. So that’s the reason why, after some discussion with key (council) staff, we were proposing a peppercorn lease similar to that portion of carpark that falls on our land.
“Using council policies, I calculated what the license fee would be and it worked out to be around $5000 per annum for that lease.”
Meanwhile, the lease agreement negotiated with the Donovan’s Recreational Advisory Committee (DRAC) for the community hall has a different template to other council halls.
“Although a lot of our halls fall on Crown land there is a slightly different template to the lease agreement negotiated for DRAC,” Ms Shelton said.
“The reason for that is it is actually council owned land, so the lease template is slightly different to some of our other halls.
“It has been drafted as a licence over the grounds area and a lease only over the specific building.”
