Percy Treyvaud Stadium: Malvern East project’s budget adds $5.3m in three months

An inner city councillor has dubbed herself the ‘crusader’ for a contentious community sport stadium, defending a $5m increase to its budget.

An inner city council has copped a massive $5.3 million cost blowout on a controversial sports stadium, partly because it declared a ‘climate emergency’.

Stonnington Council’s budget for its four-court stadium and other improvements to Malvern East’s Percy Treyvaud Memorial Park has blown out only three months after councillors voted on its location.

According to an update presented at Monday night’s council meeting, the project’s budget has increased to $49.9m, with a Supreme Court battle over covenants, the Covid-19 outbreak, a timber shortage and increased costs of steel and concrete reasons for the price hike.

The project was originally forecast to cost $44.6m in 2019 and the council carried that figure across when councillors voted to build the project at the park on June 28 this year.

The netball stadium at Percy Treyvaud Memorial Park in Malvern East has been a long-running issue with residents. Picture: Hamish Blair

The council also declared a climate emergency in February 2020, and did an environmental design review of the stadium so it could get a five green-star rating.

As a result, it will spend $500,000 replacing gas fired boilers with heat pumps, which it says will be funded through “sustainability capital works budgets”.

“This will ensure that the building is powered by 100 per cent renewable energy and is in line with the targets outlined in the climate emergency action plan,” the council wrote.

The council’s director of environment and infrastructure, Rick Kwasek, said the changes in the stadium’s design and improved environmental elements would lead to $8m in savings over the life of the building, roughly 20 per cent of the construction cost.

Mr Kwasek also said the changes would lead to 50 per cent less power being used and annual operational savings of $100,000 per year.

Councillor Jami Klisaris, a key supporter of the stadium, defended the increase of the project budget at Monday night’s meeting.

Stonnington councillor Jami Klisaris has defended the increase in costs for the Percy Treyvaud Memorial Park sports stadium. File picture.

She said the increase was unavoidable and the rise in cost of materials was affecting planned developments across the municipality.

Cr Klisaris said she would “continue to be a crusader against things misrepresenting the project or are inflammatory”.

“We costed this project two years ago, this is not a sudden increase, this is measured, considered and due to factors out of our control.” she said.

“It is not a blowout … I will continue to push back on the use of inappropriate language on this project and how positive this will be on the community.”

Institute of Public Affairs spokesman Evan Mulholland described the spending as “ludicrous”.

“Small businesses are on their knees thanks to rolling lockdowns, yet these activist councillors’ focus is to wash good ratepayer money down the sink to virtue signal on climate,” he said.

“Stonnington endorsing the end of gas stove tops is ludicrous … ratepayers have had a gutful of this nonsense.”