This message was sent to our site and we thought it would be of interest to everyone. We publish it with the sender's permission:
"We moved to Helios Heights in late 2019 after 14 years in Venus Rock. In 2008, my wife and set up the then Secret Valley Owners’s club, which is still running.
Most of the issues that concern you are the same as those that we strove to deal with. I have spoken to Ray Smith about your proposals as he was the first ex pat to be elected to the Kouklia Council.(KCC). Several years ago he and I led the legal case against the clear discrimination in the tax rates levied by KCC on the villagers and the owners in Venus Rock(VR) and Aphrodite Hills (AH).The case went to the Supreme Court and the Paphos District Office withdrew their objection to our action and since then there has been a small reduction in the tax rates in VR & AH. However, AH and VR remain the ‘cash cows’ that still provide over 80% of the KCC tax revenue and still without commensurate expenditure in the resorts. You mention ‘influencing’ the local authorities. Frankly, the only and best way to do this is through representation on the KCC and to achieve this, owners should be encouraged to register at Kouklia, so that they can vote in the local elections and thereby gain representation on the Council. However, Andrew Ioannou, the current ex pat councilor and Ray Smith will explain the frustrations in dealing in local politics. I am sure that you will be better able to influence the AH management through pressure and negotiation. You may consider using the AH management to influence the local authorities. I assume that you will convene a meeting when conditions permit? Would you confirm whether you intend to levy a subscription on membership?
I hope my note is of some use to you and wish you well with your proposals. Mike Richards"
"Dear Mike,
thank you for your letter to AHRA. We very much encourage the residents of Aphrodite Hills to speak out so the issues we are facing are known and could be addressed.
In our estimate AH provides about two thirds of the Kouklia revenue while we get back significantly less and then what we do get back for improvements and services throughout the resort is mainly spent around the village square. Other areas of the resort have been deteriorating for a long time. AHRA has been founded fairly recently but we have done a lot of work meeting and negotiating with the Paphos District Office, with Kouklia Community Council (KCC) and the mukhtar, with AH Management and many others. The proposed 2021 budget which is yet to be formally approved by KCC now includes such things as road repairs throughout the resort, road markings with and speed bumps, cleaning and redevelopment of the Nature Trail, installation of benches, trash bins and dog waste bins around the resort, building of a children's playground on the Eastern Plateau, and many other items that the residents have indicated. We also requested an accountability to the residents for the green areas' maintenance and cleaning services as in our view those that we have now are expensive and very inefficient.
You are quite right that in some sense we are competing with AH management for the same pot of money that Kouklia allocates to AH and we do actively negotiate with them to select projects that would provide a win-win solution, this is not easy as they are just not very accustomed to this, but this is the way it's going to be from now on. All interests of residents and businesses in AH alike need to be taken into account fairly.
The membership in AHRA is free and we welcome new members and those active people who do want to make our resort better. We currently spend our own money to print flyers, to set up the website and social media, to register the association and more than money it consumes a lot of our time. So ideally in the future we would like to hire some small permanent stuff who would deal with day-to-day operations.
We would gladly convene a meeting when restrictions are lifted as we do believe in direct engagement with people, but currently we rely on the internet resources. Please sign up and register, let your ideas and suggestions be known.
Kind regards,
Boris Zilbermints "