Upper Yarra
7 Tuesday, 3 May, 2016
Music festival success
15
Mail Covering the Upper Yarra Region of the Yarra Ranges Shire
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A Mail News Group publication
25-27
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Shire’s $28m offices By JESSE GRAHAM YARRA Ranges Council will have a new, fully-refurbished $28 million office by 2020, with councillors endorsing the first stages of a “complete redevelopment” at a recent meeting. But the former mayor and a current councillor have both criticised the process for the redevelopment, with no community consultation before greenlighting the project. On Tuesday, 26 April, Yarra Ranges councillors voted to endorse a complete redevelopment of the council’s Anderson Street offices, which are currently in a state of disrepair. The councillors also voted to approve funding and borrowing to undertake the complete redevelopment, which would see the offices completely refurbished, with another two-level building constructed and old portable buildings removed. The council had already earmarked $18 million for the project, with council’s decision meaning a further $10 million will be added. In a media tour of the council offices before the council meeting, project director Scott Hodges showed examples of the building in a state of disrepair, with water damage, out-dated systems and asbestos sheeting throughout the structure. He said the office buildings do not have safety switches, or temperature control from hot water taps, meaning employees are at risk of electrocution or scalding, and that steel beams supporting the structure have not been fire-protected. “If they melt, the whole house of cards falls down,” he said. The problem, he said, was that the council faced a domino-effect of urgent works if it got a single repair underway. “We don’t have safety switches, we can’t add to our boards - they are out of date, they have asbestos, they have insufficient capacity to support any upgrade,” he said. “Therefore, if you replace the electrics, or if you’re trying to replace the
Scott Hodges looks at the Yarra Ranges Council office roof. There is no official access – the door to the roof reads “DO NOT USE”. 153408
Yarra Ranges Mayor, Jason Callanan, looks at loose wires in an underground area of the council building, where air for the air-conditioning system Picture: JESSE GRAHAM is drawn in. 153408 air-conditioning – which is well past its use-by date – you would need to upgrade your electrical boards. “If you upgrade your electrical boards, you also need to do your fire systems ... so you start to get this percentage trigger, that pushes us over the 25 or 50 per cent in the building code, which means you’ve got to upgrade the full building.” Mr Hodges said that council was required to make their buildings compliant, and that the minimum cost of getting the current building up-to-scratch was $6.5 million - before GST. Another two options, for partial refurbishment and redevelopment worth
$18 million and $22.5 million respectively, were on the table, but not endorsed by the council. At the council meeting, former mayor, Tim Heenan, raised concerns about a lack of consultation on the project, pointing out that no person was sitting in the gallery in regards to the item, despite its large price-tag. “I’m appalled (there is) no-one sitting in the (gallery) who knows anything about it ... obviously it’s been a fairly good secret,” Mr Heenan told the council. “The community has every right to know when a substantial amount of money is going to be spent ...
considering they are ratepayers. He also said a $117,000 feasibility study – which was originally estimated to cost $420,000 – was unnecessary, as previous studies had been undertaken. Cr Fiona McAllister raised similar concerns to Mr Heenan, noting that the redevelopment would be the largest financial contribution the council had made to a project, and that people should have been consulted on the different options. “I don’t challenge the fact that we need to do something, because the conditions are not acceptable and not safe, and we need to provide a safe work environment,” she said.
“(But) given the size of the spend, and the significance of it, to have noone else from the community there ... surely, that itself sends a message that something wasn’t right in the process.” Addressing concerns about the cost of the refurbishment, Mr Hodges said the works would be “modest and humble,” and the resulting building would last for the coming 60 years. The feasibility study and its documents are available at www.yarraranges.vic.gov.au. Reports will be presented to council for town planning in early 2017, with the project set to go to tender in late 2017.
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