The council will be asked to adopt the proposal, which will see a fresh round of community consultation over the 2012-13 rates, at an extraordinary meeting in Queenstown tomorrow morning.
The council confirmed last week it needed to review unexpected anomalies found in the first instalment of its rates, which saw some properties' rates increase or decrease by more than 20%.
Mr Burns said the council was now "acting as quickly as we can" to get the public process under way.
The proposal would deal with the inequities in rates movements for some properties and introduce a solution to "moderate" the impacts.
It would see a reduction to the Recreation and Events, Regulatory and Governance rates and the creation of two fixed charge rates - Recreation and Events and Regulatory and Governance combined.
"Instead of collecting all of these rates based on value, there will now be an element of fixed charge for everyone, which results in a fairer allocation of rates, the outcome we had always intended," Mr Burns said.
Under the proposal, the percentage of properties where rates rose or fell by20% would reduce from 14.6% to 7.9%.
Most properties which remained in the 20% plus range would be those which had changed for rating purposes, for example, had been developed; had a change of use; or where additional council services had been provided and charged.
"What we plan to do will not be a silver bullet for anyone in this category; they should still anticipate their rates will have moved accordingly.
"We looked at various options but have recommended a proposal that will give us a solution that remains in line with the way the rates had been intended to be allocated - as per our recent 10-year plan process," Mr Burns said.
If the council adopts the proposal tomorrow, it would open for submissions next week.
"We plan to send an outline of the proposal to every ratepayer, with submissions also available online. We will also develop an online rates calculator."
Mr Burns estimated the public consultation would cost between about $10,000 and $15,000, without factoring internal resourcing.
The council would also extend the time for the second rates instalment from November 23 to December 7 to allow for full public input.
Ratepayers had, however, been asked to pay the first instalment, due September 21, with any adjustments to be made for the second instalment.
"We would be looking to adopt the final proposal on 30 October, 2012," Mr Burns said.
The council had apologised to ratepayers for the unexpected anomaly.
QLDC rates proposals
The council proposes to:
a) reduce the existing Recreation and Events (CV-based) rate by 50%;
b) introduce a new fixed Recreation and Events rate;
c) reduce the existing Governance and Regulatory rates by 20% each; and
d) introduce a new fixed charge Governance and Regulatory (combined) rate.
• Under the existing rating structure, almost 15% of properties showed rates reductions or increases of more than 20%
• Under the proposal, properties in the -10% to +10% movement range would increase from 69.5% to 81.4%
• The percentage of properties with reductions or increases of more than 20% would decrease from 14.6% to 7.9%
