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The initial rate increase of 5.8 per cent will assist with the urgent works required to be completed by Queanbeyan City Council, which will address a current funding gap of $3 million.

However, the community will be called upon to decide what level of services are necessary for the city and if the demands outstrip current funds, an additional special rate variation may be applied for by council.

Certain factors need to be met for this to happen, which will form part of council's current work being done on a long-term asset management plan.

Using Waverly City Council as an example, the Queanbeyan Council spokesman, Paul Spyve, said Queanbeyan would attempt to achieve a delivery of service to the “sustainable assets level” in the short-term.

“Basically what we're doing, we're still in a process of identifying all our assets,” he said.

Items that have not yet been identified in the funding gap include storm, sewer and street infrastructure, car parks and buildings. These issues will be further addressed with the community and Mr Spyve said, in response to whether a further rate increase would be put in place, that it could be “a few years” away.

But the movement towards an integrated government approach between federal, state and local levels could ensure that funding is secured through grants, but council would need to show that work is being done to be worthy of them.

Mr Spyve said the gap was not necessarily about the council doing anything wrong, but rather a trend of maintenance and renewal issues being faced on a national and international level.

He added that as a democracy, it would be up to ratepayers to be part of future consultations, like the residents and ratepayers forum last month, to assist council in making decisions on the level of service required for the city.

“We want to go back to the community as we get more rigour with our asset management plan, to have discussions about what are the levels of service [they] want in the community,” Mr Spyve said.

“Once [council] has their integrated plans in place, this means they will have a full set of information to take to the community.”