De Stefano Drive: Geelong council set to vote on road sale, asset plan

Geelong’s councillors are set to erase a reminder of a disgraced former mayor, as a draft plan for managing the city’s sprawling asset portfolio – worth over $6b – will go out for consultation.

City Hall is in the process of discontinuing De Stefano Drive in North Geelong, which was named in honour of disgraced former Geelong mayor Frank De Stefano. Picture: Alison Wynd

A road named after a disgraced former Geelong mayor is set to be sold, after not a single person came forward to protest the move.

Geelong councillors voted unanimously in April to seek public feedback on discontinuing De Stefano Drive in North Geelong.

The road is named in honour of former Geelong mayor Frank De Stefano, who was jailed for a decade in 2003 for pilfering $8.6m from clients of his accounting firm.

The road effectively an entry point to and carpark for Cultura’s Multicultural Aged Care Services (MACS) facility.

Former Geelong mayor Frank De Stefano.

City Hall agreed to sell the road reserve, and an adjacent block, land to MACs in a December 2011 resolution, however due to changes to the Local Government Act, the process was not finalised.

Following the council’s April meeting, City Hall did not receive a single submission during the community engagement period.

Councillors will vote on the sale at the city’s July council meeting on Tuesday.

At the same meeting, councillors will vote on whether to put a draft plan of the city’s asset management plan for the next decade to the public for consultation.

The city manages a portfolio worth more than $6b, including 850 buildings and 200 acres of open space, along with thousands of metres of roads, footpaths and drainage assets.

The buildings owned by the city make up more than $2b of its assets.

The draft plan, which covers 2025-2025, examines the health of the city’s sprawling assets, setting a target of 65 per cent asset health for its portfolio, with no more than 6 per cent of assets in poor condition.
How the city manages its assets has become a hot-button topic of late, after mayor Stretch Kontelj mulled the sale of assets as a way to lower Geelong’s eye-watering debt.

Last month City Hall revealed the latest six sites it was looking to sell, including addresses in Belmont, Bell Post Hill, Corio, Bell Park, St Leonards and Drysdale.

Unlike De Stefano Dr, the latter has seen some push back.

The Geelong Advertiser last week revealed the family of former council president Harold Bennett were fighting the $1m sale of that parcel of land in Drysdale, which he donated to the community decades ago.

In February, Geelong council put a proposal to sell two Ocean Grove properties out for community feedback.

At that meeting, Leopold councillor former mayor Trent Sullivan denied the move was an “abominable sell-off of assets”.

Like De Stefano Drive, the Ocean Grove property sale has been planned for over a decade.

Originally published as De Stefano Drive: Geelong council set to vote on road sale, asset plan