Council house rents in Dundee will go up by £120 a year from April but nearly all tenants say they would be happy to pay more.
A report going before Dundee City Council’s housing, Dundee Contract Services and environment services committee on Monday will ask councillors to approve the 4.5% rise, which works out as an average increase of £2.59 a week from April 4.
The recommendation comes after a two-month consultation with tenants on possible rent rises. Tenants were asked if they would prefer rises of 4.5%, 4.75% or 5%.
Surprisingly, only 60% of respondents said they would prefer the lowest option, while 12% of tenants preferred the 4.75% rise and 14% opted for the 5% rise. The remainder said they had no preference.
Only a third of tenants will have to find the extra money themselves. Some 67% of council tenants receive housing benefit and this will pay for the rise.
Housing convener Jimmy Black said, “All our tenants were given the chance to take part in the consultation and it was important that they gave us their views on the rent proposals.
“The council is spending millions on its housing stock to meet its legal obligation for the Scottish Housing Quality Standard by 2015 and we depend on the income from rents to be able to achieve this.”‘Easy as possible’He added, “We made it as easy as possible for tenants to take part in the consultation and a lot of information was provided because we wanted them to be fully aware of the options.”
The increase will help the council reduce its planned £10.7 million maintenance programme from 10 years to eight.
A range of other price increases are also recommended to councillors for approval.
These include increasing the sheltered housing service charge by 50p to £26.94. Rent for travelling people’s sites will go up by £1.70 a week to £58.38.
Rental income for 2011/12 is expected to be £40,476,631, a fall of £229,428 from the year before.
This is attributed to the sale of council houses and the demolition of unsuitable properties.