Region. Councils would go 'broke'

Councils in Sydney growth centres are refusing to process major development applications in a rapidly worsening dispute with the state government over its decision to impose a $20,000 cap on developer levies. Councils say the cap means new housing developments will lack critical infrastructure or ratepayers will face huge rate rises to pay for the facilities developers used to fund. President of the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils, Clr Alison McLaren, said the changes had infuriated members who would have to borrow to fund infrastructure or ask IPART for huge rate rises. ''It could send our councils broke,'' she said. A spokesman for Planning Minister, Tony Kelly, in The Sydney Morning Herald, defended the changes which were designed to reduce the cost of housing and ''provided councils with the autonomy to raise funding for their own infrastructure''.