A half-sized Dandenong Community Hub will go ahead after Greater Dandenong mayor Sophie Tan’s casting vote sidelined calls to rescind the downscaled design.
The rescission motion put forward by councillor Rhonda Garad on the Tuesday 27 January council meeting sought council to revisit the drawing board.
In December, the council had voted to halve the “oversized” facility to fit a $30 million budget.
Despite a community group’s long efforts, including in public question time at the meeting, the recission motion failed to gain a majority. Councillors were split 4-4, with Cr Tan’s casting vote deciding the matter.
“Elections came and went with the Community Hub becoming the centre piece and draw-card for publicity and promised electoral commitments,” former councillor and community group supporter Geraldine Gonsalvez said.
“However, the upshot of all this coupled with countless hours of planning meetings, hoping, waiting and persevering, came to nought in a crushing and disappointing heap.”
Votes on the motion tied, allowing the Mayor to use her casting vote, and she voted against the motion.
An emotional Cr Garad stormed out of the chamber followed by councillor Jim Memeti to recollect themselves after losing the vote.
Cr Garad argued intensely against getting on with the concept design, which has decreased from 3950 square metres to about 1800 square metres – the same size as the recently-opened Keysborough Community Hub.
This is after council officers estimated the previous one-storey design for DCH had ballooned to $65 million, plus up to $15 million for a basement car park – a feature that hub advocates say they don’t want.
Councillor Garad argued the needs of the increasing population won’t be met through this design.
“You’re failing to take the time to get the evidence to determine how big does a child (services) part of it need to be?
“So, you’re going to build this half-cocked, inappropriate not wanted community hub, five minutes later you will all sit here thinking how do we build a bigger one?
“I know how those kids that come from other countries need the best quality childcare, the mothers need the community hub to learn English, to learn skills for work, to integrate in our community.
“This is the highest need area, and we need it fit-for-purpose at the size it must be.”
Councillors Sean O’Reilly and Bob Milkovic continued their debate from December to have the long-awaited project “back on track” rather than to “string” the community along.
Cr O’Reilly said the new concept design was “something realistic which is more likely to be delivered in a shorter timeframe”.
“As councillors we want to deliver rather than continue to bump oxygen into ideas that haven’t been delivered,” Cr O’Reilly said.
Dandenong Community Association spokesperson Silvia Mastrogiovanni says it was “disappointing” to that Cr Milkovic “doesn’t care about what the Dandenong residents’ need” despite him growing up in the area.
She says their group won’t stop fighting for the time, effort, community involvement it took co-designing the orginal hub concept at the cost of $750,000 to rate-payers.
“This time, money and community involvement can’t be let go to waste.”
Councillor Garad expressed if councillors Isabella Do and Lana Formoso weren’t absent for the meeting, the rescission motion may have passed.
The council expects to take on significant debt and draw down on reserves for its under-construction $122 million Dandenong Wellbeing Centre aquatic project, borrowing $68 million in the next two years and spending $16.6 million from reserves next year.
It will be spending up to $7.2 million a year to service the loans.
