Councillors voted to accept the plan, which includes differential percentages for farmland, at Tuesday’s meeting. 

But the plan to impose a levy on vacant industrial land drew the ire of Camperdown’s Geoff Daffy, who used the open forum to vent his frustrations. 

Mr Daffy said he owned several blocks of industrial land, and felt it was unfair to impose a levy on vacant land, because it was hard enough to sell developed land. 

“I own three blocks in Church Street, one has been developed and I can’t sell it,” he said. “I don’t think it’s fair to put a levy on undeveloped industrial land when you can’t sell what’s been developed.”

Mayor Chris O’Connor said the levy was to encourage industrial land owners to develop the land and encourage new industry, so “land banking” which he said was an issue in areas of the shire, was minimised.

“It’s unfortunate that you’ve been caught in this, but it’s just one of those things we needed to do,” Cr O’Connor told Mr Daffy. 

Councillors voted unanimously to adopt the strategy.