Municipal Building Project Motion
At last night's Council meeting I moved a motion relating to the redevelopment of the Anderson Street Council Offices. This is a significant project for this council and has been delayed for over 10 years.
I understand and appreciate that this project will not be popular, but this building has been left to rot! A decision should have been made many years ago! Why wasn't it?
So we have had to make a hard decision to progress and finally after many delays and non-decisive "decision makers" this project will finally move forward to the next step.
As a ratepayer you will get ample opportunity to voice your concerns, suggestions and input into this project as the project progresses.
There are still 2 HOLD points for council to make a final decision prior to construction!
But this project has been "on hold" for over 10 years!
Below is the motion and my speech.
RECOMMENDATION
That Council
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Endorses the complete redevelopment of the Anderson Street Council Offices site.
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Approves the additional funding and borrowings required to undertake the complete redevelopment of the Anderson Street Council Offices.
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Funds additional costs for the complete redevelopment of the Anderson Street Council Offices with $3.8 million from the Asset Renewal Fund, and $5.9 million from new borrowings.
Councillors I would like to move an “Alternate” motion to item 7.8 regarding the Municipal Office Project and if I have a seconder I will speak to it.
Councillors, we have been on a long journey with this project and we have now made some significant progress:
Even before I came to council in 2012, this building has been undergoing a number of reviews and assessments about its longevity and its adequacy for our employees and our rate payers.
During my time we have considered various options on what to do here, from relocating to another building, constructing a new office, or renovating/rebuilding here.
A few years ago council considered the move to then old swinburne site and co-locate with other educational agencies, that didn’t come to fruition.
In august 2015, we endorsed to do a revised “feasibility” assessment for this site here at the shire offices in Lilydale which were built in 1970.
I have been privy to a recent tour of the office block which revealed some alarming issues, such as flooding, termites, and land movement. Not to mention the office interiors where there was no natural light, odours of built up moister and large cracks in the walls.
Upon completion of this feasibility report “which we initially priced at around $420,000.00” but ended up being $117,000.00 a saving of over $300,000.00 revealed an even more alarming scenario.
Here it is! a substantial report outlining clearly the current state of play here at these offices.
This report revealed $6.5 Million dollars were needed to just make our offices “compliant and appropriate” for today’s standards.
Things such as disabled access, heating and cooling, fire safety, electrical, plumbing. ALL revealed major issues!
None of this happened overnight! Some of these issues have been “brewing” for many years prior to 2012, and for whatever reason had been delayed, deferred or patched up.
We are now facing a critical point! We must make some changes!
Now that we are all aware of the issues, and now they have been documented we must act!
Also we now have a real opportunity to recreate a civic centre for the Yarra Ranges Shire that is “fit for purpose” a space that will last for another 50 years.
Now tonight’s recommendation isn’t about accepting a contract and placing construction signs up, it’s the next step in the chain
We have been shown the issues, we all know how bad this place is, we now have some options around what we would like to move to for the next decision point.
Now I was concerned when I received this report in our agenda – a 13 page report.
I was uneasy to bring this to council.
Now if i was uneasy to propose a multi-million dollar project on 13 pages and had multiple briefings from architects and project officers and 2 tours of the site, I wonder how our community would feel?
Do we have something to hide?
Well I can stand here and unequivocally state NO WE DONT
Yes some questions need to be answered?
Are we being responsible with your rates?
If we look at pages 169, 170, 171 (of the meetings agenda) we all see a graph showing our risk of debt, the top line for the public’s sake is at 40%. There it shows the “Victorian Auditor General’s office (VAGO)” suggestion that 40% and below is considered a low risk.
Looking at each graph – we don’t breach that level, hence we are well within our means to support/fund this project.
What about the rate cap coming in, will council ask for a variation so we can exceed the 2.5% rate cap in order to fund this project? – We have all agreed to stick within the rate cap and not ask for any variation.
Why can’t we just fix the compliance issues? –
We can, but we still have major issues with space, cost of renting other locations, people still working in outdated and redundant annexes.
For one of the largest employers in this shire (around 900 staff) if we were to just fix the non compliant issues, I feel that just shows we are going to cover our backsides and not worry how our current staff work and operate.
Research shows that with modern, well lit, and well spaced office space, productivity can increase by 10%, and absenteeism can drop by 5%.
Well it looks like you are only looking after your own back yard!
Yes we are looking after are own backyard, but this backyard supports ALL of your back yards
If we want to improve customer service, planning, and other services, we need to look after our staff by providing them with safe and healthy environments that they WANT to work in (Not just get payed)
Why are you not telling us about this major project?
We are, this is the start of explaining to everyone our current situation, this brief will grow, I’ve learnt today that the “draft” soil report has arrived and that alone is another 2-300 pages.
I want to ensure we are not trying to hide anything and we want to be as transparent as possible, BUT
I want us to be consistent too! We must follow a process, all major projects do,
In fact we are stepping outside of this process by providing the public with these reports!
This wasn’t done for Burrinja, the Belgrave hub, the Monbulk Living and learning centre or the Regional Soccer facilities ALL of which were multi Million dollar rate payer projects.
Our community will have AMPLE input in the next steps such as the actual planning permit process!
Councillors I am asking for your support for the 3rd option which essentially creates a new office but it will still keep some of its original identity, it will be modest and FIT FOR Purpose!
This is no Taj Mahal, you won’t see any gold seat toilets, or crystal chandeliers, what our rate payers and staff will get is a functional, breath of fresh air and a place they can’t enjoy coming to.
Tonight’s decision is to give our council officers some direction and start looking further into what we need here as in terms of practicality and cost efficient work space along with creating a new civic centre which will last for another 50 years
I ask that you support option three and let this project finally move forward, any further delays will only result continued disregard for our work force and rate payers due to excessive maintenance and repairs, and continued hiring of new staff!
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