The City of Ballarat claims the Victorian government was aware of the circumstances surrounding its decision to use $850,000 of taxpayers' funds to build the Creswick Road car park, including the fact the land was privately owned and only secured by council under a short-term lease.
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For the last five years, the site at 122 Creswick Road has been leased by the City of Ballarat at a cost of $200,000 per annum, with the current 12-month lease quietly renewed in January this year.
Since October last year, Grampians Health has used the car park as at temporary COVID-19 testing facility, reimbursing the City of Ballarat no more than $13,700 in total as of August 2022 for its use of the site.
Formerly a disused Shell depot, the site has been owned by various Geelong-based companies in the name of Brian O'Shannassy of Russell Bridge since 2016.
In late 2019, the City of Ballarat completed the 300-space car park, drawing on a $2 million state government grant provided for new car spaces in the CBD.
Pursuant to that grant, the Creswick Road car park was expressly constructed with a view to compensating CBD workers and residents for the loss of parking brought about by the new GovHub building on the old Civic Hall site.
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Notwithstanding this much-publicised history, City of Ballarat director of growth and development Natalie Robertson recently told The Courier that council had never envisaged the site would remain a car park beyond the life of the lease agreement.
"The original development and lease arrangement secured the site for use as a car park for the term of the lease," she said, noting that either the landowner or council could discontinue "this arrangement in the future".
This week, when asked whether the Victorian government was aware of the circumstances surrounding council's decision to use taxpayers' funds in this manner, Ms Robertson answered "yes", but did not elaborate.
A written statement provided by Regional Development Victoria was less emphatic; it neither confirming nor denying the veracity of Ms Robertson's claim.
"The site was identified by the City of Ballarat and it manages the lease arrangement with the landowner; questions about future plans are best directed to the council," the statement said.
Two weeks ago, it emerged that Officeworks had lodged a planning application over the site, meaning the City of Ballarat could lose its tenancy over the site as early as 2023.
Ratepayers Victoria vice president Dean Hurlston described the totality of this state of affairs as "absolutely irresponsible economic management of council".
"Using grant funding of $850,000 to create a temporary car park over land council doesn't own or control is irresponsible and wasteful," he said.
"What happens when Officeworks takes it over and those 300 spaces go? This is misappropriation of money [on a scale] that I have not seen in quite a while.
"As council, you would never develop a private owner's land; if councillors made this decision, they should be sacked. If the CEO made this decision, they should be sacked."
Ms Robertson shrugged off these view on the footing that it was not, in her view, unheard of for local governments to make decisions of this nature.
"It is not uncommon for council to lease land and buildings for a variety of purposes, and to invest into those assets," she said.
"Consideration is always given to the investment versus the tenure and what value that will deliver the community."
The Creswick Road car park project has a long and controversial history, it having emerged in 2020 that council had blown its initial $180,000 capital works budget for the project by $670,000.
At the time, the City of Ballarat blamed the significant cost blow-out on weather-related delays and unforeseen remediation works.
This week, however, the City of Ballarat confirmed the cost of those remediation works only stood in the order of $56,066.
In 2020, it also emerged, courtesy of an Ombudsman report into the City of Ballarat, that the $850,000 project was never released for public tender.
This, the City of Ballarat claimed, was due to the initial low estimate provided for the project, which did not anticipate the possibility the scope of the works might expand over time.
The Courier is awating a response from the City of Ballarat regarding whether council is contractually obliged to build an alternative 300-space car park at ratepayers' expense if and when the site ceases to be a car park in the future.
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