A majority of Shellharbour councillors have waved through modifications to their controversial civic centre project, despite concerns there had not been enough community consultation.
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The changes to the $60 million building, formerly known as the “hub”, include a 1.2 metre increase in the roof height, changes to materials, an increase in floor space and extra excavation in a car parking levels.
The modifications went on public exhibition in March, with the council receiving seven objections. Staff noted there were several requests for the application to be re-advertised after this time, as there was an “apparent failure of the council’s website” which did not allow electronic submissions.
However, they said “procedural fairness was not unreasonably hindered by the technical glitch” as other residents were able to email or post their comments.
In a debate over the modifications at Tuesday night’s meeting Liberal councillor Kellie Marsh said she believed the community had not had sufficient notice of the changes and was “not comfortable” about changing the height and materials of the building. Cr Helen Stewart raised similar concerns.
“This whole thing is nothing like what went out to the community,” she said.
Independent councillor Peter Moran wanted to know why the council had not included any costings in its report on the changes.
The council’s assets and projects manager Graham Standen told councillors any costs linked to the design changes would be borne by contractor ADCO Constructions.
“The changes presented in this report are the result of design development,” he said.
“Many of these changes were captured before we awarded the contract to ADCO so the cost of these changes is born by ADCO under the contract price that council agreed to.”
Recommending the approval go ahead, Labor’s John Murray said the “relatively minor” changes were a “no brainer”.
“Whether you supported the building or not doesn’t really matter,” he said.
“We now have a design and construct contract for this and we have to pay for it whether we build it or not, so the issue now is are we going to manage this and get a good building, or not.”
Councillors voted 4-3 to approve the modifications, with Crs Moran, Stewart and Marsh voting against.
According to staff, the changes to the centre’s plans have “minimal environmental impact”, so can be approved by the council under the state planning act. The Joint Regional Planning Panel was the consent authority for the original plans.
Saliba says hub changes needed
Shellharbour mayor Marianne Saliba has played down concerns raised about design changes to the city’s civic centre, saying they were “minor amendments with no financial implications”.
She said the council had always anticipated that it would need to make some design adjustments after the contract to build the centre was awarded to ADCO Constructions.
“This is not about the design of the building, about changing its looks – this is purely about some details for the builder to put their mark on the building,” she said.
“There’s been a lot of discussion in relation to the civic centre, and everyone and their dog has heard of it. So it’s not correct that there hasn’t been ample time.”
She said councillors and staff had continued to assess the hub project through a “project control committee”, ensuring it remained within budget and within the original purpose of the building.
“We have all the way through this, continued to assess it to make sure it was in keeping with what was required at the beginning and with the expectations of the community.”
Cr Saliba also said the council had no choice to assess the modifications to its own building, as there was no other process available in the NSW Planning process.
“There isn’t another body – we can’t take a minor thing like this and go to the JRPP with it, so we have no choice but to assess this,” she said.
“This whole process has been through a significant number of checks and balances.”
