$4m cost for NACH to dump gas

GEELONG council has agreed to an additional $4 million for the Northern Aquatic & Community Hub (NACH) to switch its original heating and cooling design from gas to electricity.

Requiring a variation to the building contract with Kane Construction that was awarded in December last year, the shift comes with a sense of urgency given work has already commenced on the $60 million project.

The additional funds were earmarked in council’s draft 2022-23 budget that was approved in April, but required a vote by council as the increase is greater than the chief executive officer delegation of $2 million.

Although in favour of the budget measure, Cr Anthony Aitken acknowledged that the economic cost of switching power sources for the centre are questionable.

“Look financially it probably doesn’t stack up spending $4 million on converting gas to electricity, because in fact our savings we estimate to be about $150,000 per year, but importantly we’ve actually been able to identify that it’s going to actually result in 17,000 tonnes less of greenhouse gas emissions.

“Technology has changed so much since 2018 when we first did our original design plans … we are presented with a unique opportunity here to actually create this facility to not only be the best community hub that we have in the whole of Geelong, but to actually be a showcase about our commitment towards being a sustainable council and being a sustainable community.”

The ballooning cost of the project was cited by Cr Ron Nelson in his reasoning for casting the only opposing vote for the funding increase.

“I was certainly supportive of this project when it first came around … it was pitched to us saying it will cost us $20 million and we’ll get the rest from state and feds,” he said.

“That’s hardly happened, we’ve only got $8 million from Vic government and $8 million from the federal government and then we were told we were going to get $10 million from the building better regions fund and we didn’t get that either … now we’re asking for another $4 million so our ask is up to around $50 million now of our budget, $50 million.

“Cr Aitken said the technology change in the last few years has been exponential, it certainly has, I’m not sure what’s happened in the last 12 months because 12 months ago we were doing it out of gas and now we’re doing electricity.”

Cr Sarah Mansfield said it was imperative that council make the shift from gas to electricity in order to meet recent emission reduction commitments agreed to by council.

“One thing that’s changed in the last 12 months is that council has endorsed our climate response plan and committed to some pretty ambitious targets for our own operations including net zero by 2025, not that far away, three years,” she said.

“We’ve also endorsed a sustainability framework which is about looking at the cost of what we do more than just in financial terms but looking at the broader impact of the decision that we make.

“Socially, environmentally, not just the dollar figures.”

The Surf Coast Shire is similarly grappling with development design changes for its Torquay centre, proposed for completion in 2025 although work there is yet to commence.

In April it accepted a report that noted its commitment to net zero emissions by 2030 is “at risk” due to likely future emissions from the centre’s use of gas for heating and cooling.

“The project budget’s capacity to shift to an all-electric system is yet to be tested,” SCSC general manager of environment Chris Pike said at the time.