Draft Alpine Resorts (Management) (Amendment) Regulations 2004
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DRAFT ALPINE RESORTS (MANAGEMENT) (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS 2004 Regulatory Impact Statement This Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) has been prepared to fulfil the requirements of the Subordinate Legislation Act 1994 and to facilitate public consultation on the proposed Regulations. Copies of the draft Regulations are provided as an attachment to this RIS. Public comments and submissions are invited on the proposed Regulations, in response to information provided in this RIS. All submissions will be treated as public documents. Written comments and submissions should be forwarded no later than Friday 24 December 2004 to: Alpine Resorts (Management) (Amendment) Regulations 2004 Coasts, Alps and Recreation DSE PO Box 500 East Melbourne 3002 or email [email protected] ii © State of Victoria, Department of Sustainability and Environment 2004 This publication is copyright. No part may be reproduced by any process except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1986. ISBN 1 74106 199 7 General Disclaimer This publication may be of assistance to you, but the State of Victoria and its employees do not guarantee that the publication is without flaw of any kind or is wholly appropriate for your particular purposes and therefore disclaims all liability for any error, loss or other consequence which may arise from you relying on any information in this publication. This Regulatory Impact Statement was prepared by Tim Harding & Associates with assistance from Mardaker Pty Ltd. iii Summary The proposed Regulations are intended to amend the existing Regulations, the Alpine Resorts (Management) Regulations 1998 for four specific purposes- 1. To provide Alpine Resort Management Boards (‘Boards’) with the choice of charging ‘access and use fees’ by vehicle or by person up to maximum limits specified in the Regulations; 2. To revise the maximum limits for ‘access and use fees’ to enable the recovery of the costs of providing services to visitors to the resorts; 3. To provide certain Boards with the choice of not requiring day visitors to carry wheel chains on particular days under specified circumstances; and 4. To make minor miscellaneous amendments. Victoria’s alpine resorts are unique public assets facilitating access to a scarce resource – the Australian alpine environment. The resorts offer visitors the rare experience of being able to stay on mountains above the snow line with ski in/ski out access to the ski fields. They are limited to relatively small areas of Crown land located in environmentally sensitive areas, generally surrounded by National Parks where conservation and environmental protection are of paramount importance. This public ownership of alpine resorts also requires that public access to them should remain reasonably affordable. As many as 900,000 people visit Victoria’s six alpine resorts during the snow season each year, making them one of the most intensively used areas of public land in the State. The level of winter visitation correlates strongly with the quality of snow cover at each resort. Alpine Resort Management Boards (‘Boards’) are established under the Alpine Resorts (Management) Act 1997 (‘the Act’). Boards have been appointed for the alpine resorts of Mount Buller, Falls Creek, Mount Hotham, Mount Baw Baw, Lake Mountain and Mount Stirling. Co-ordination of these Boards is effected through the Alpine Resorts Co-ordinating Council. It is now over six years since the Alpine Resorts (Management) Regulations 1998 came into operation. In the light of this operational experience, the Department of Sustainability and Environment and the Boards have identified some problems that indicate a need to amend these Regulations. iv Maximum ‘access and use fees’ Amongst other functions, these Boards provide a range of urban services, including garbage disposal, water supply, gas, drainage, sewerage, electricity, fire protection roads, parking facilities and contributions to snowmaking. The levels of service provided are mainly a function of the number of persons visiting each resort and the length of their visit, rather than the number of vehicles in each resort. The current Regulations require the payment of entry fees for winter visitors arriving by car to be charged on a per vehicle basis, regardless of the number of people per vehicle. On the other hand, visitors arriving by bus are currently charged per person. Having the choice of charging entry fees by vehicle or by person could enable Boards to better comply with the user-pays principle. Boards are also required to be financially self-sufficient. One of the main challenges of the Alpine Resorts 2020 Strategy is to provide an equitable financial structure that does not disadvantage other resorts and does not rely on significant financial support from the Government. According to Department of Treasury and Finance guidelines for setting fees– All user-pay type fees and charges, should be set to recover the full cost of the product or service provided from users, unless there are explicit policy or public good reasons for not doing so. If the full costs of services provided to users of alpine resorts are to be recovered, then the maximum fees specified in the existing Regulations are insufficient for this purpose. On legal advice, it is proposed to change the existing daily ‘entry fee’ to a daily ‘access and use’ fee, but this has no bearing on the level of the fees charged. Carriage of wheel chains The existing Regulations require that wheel chains must be carried by all vehicles entering the resorts during the snow season, regardless of the road condition and the likelihood of snowfalls requiring their use. Although the safety of those driving to the resorts in the winter must remain the paramount consideration, there is often a great difference in road conditions between the high altitude resorts and the low altitude resorts. At the lower altitude resorts, day visitors would have greater ease of access at significantly lower cost if the requirement to carry chains was waived on days when they are not needed, particularly towards the end of the season. v Preliminary consultation Prior to drafting the proposed Regulations and this RIS, preliminary consultation was undertaken with representatives of key stakeholder groups. Written notice of the nature of the proposed amendments was circulated to various stakeholder organisations. However, the levels of the proposed new maximum fees were not discussed in this preliminary consultation process. All comments and submissions received (see part 1.4) have been taken into account in preparing the proposed Regulations and this RIS. Nature and effects of proposed regulations The nature and effects of proposed Regulations are set out in Parts 2.0 and 4.0 of the RIS. The proposed Regulations would enable prescribed Boards to waive the requirement for motor vehicles to carry wheel chains on specified days. Such decisions would be subject to the latest weather forecasts and public safety considerations, and for that reason must be made no earlier than the day prior to the day in which the waiver is to apply. Adequate signs or notices of such decisions must be displayed. The Regulations propose that Boards be permitted to charge access and use fees on either a per person or a per vehicle basis, subject to specified conditions. The Regulations also propose an increase in the maximum fee based upon full recovery of the highest cost per visitor day during an average season at any of the resorts other than Mt. Stirling i.e. Mt Baw Baw at $13.25 (see Appendix 2). It must be emphasised that these regulated fees are maximums, and not necessarily the actual fees, which are competitively determined by each Board below the regulated maximum. It is possible that some Boards may increase their actual fees very little or not at all. A comparison of the existing and proposed maximum fees is given in Table 3. Alternatives to Regulations Part 3.0 of the RIS identifies practicable alternatives to the proposed Regulations, including maintaining the status quo i.e. the existing maximum fees and requiring the carriage of wheel chains at all times during the snow season. Charging no fees is not a practicable alternative because it would not meet the Government’s recently published strategy of requiring Boards to be financially self- sufficient. The development of a voluntary code of practice regarding the carrying of wheel chains is not a practicable alternative on safety grounds. For reasons outlined in Part 3.0 of this RIS, a regulatory approach is considered to be the most appropriate form of intervention to achieve the identified policy objective. vi Assessment of Costs and Benefits Part 4.0 of the RIS assesses the relative costs and benefits of the proposed Regulations for the Victorian community, and compares and contrasts the costs and benefits with the practicable alternatives. The assessment in Tables 4 and 5 indicates that the benefit-to-cost ratio for the access and use fees and carriage of wheel chains is expected to be greater for the proposed Regulations compared with the practicable alternatives i.e. the existing Regulations. The proposed maximum fee structure allows for the recovery from all visitors of the full cost of efficiently produced visitor services and for greater flexibility in the basis of entry fee collection. This ensures that there is incentive to invest in the provision of infrastructure, which will provide for improved visitor services in the future. While the existing Regulations regarding the carrying of wheel chains meet the harm minimisation objective, this is achieved at a higher cost than would occur with the proposed Regulations. The cost of compliance to achieve the safety objective is set too high. The cost benefit assessment in Part 4.0 of the RIS concludes that the proposed Regulations are the best alternative for achieving the identified policy objective, in which the costs of the proposed Regulations are outweighed by their likely benefits.