Billion dollar green waste plant plan in Gold Coast north progresses at council

Councillors have gone into private session to flesh out the costs of an ambitious billion-dollar plan to boost the Gold Coast’s environmental credentials. Read the fallout

Councillor Peter Young moved the council moved into private session to discuss the financials of the green waste plans of the city. Picture: Glenn Campbell

Councillors are concerned at the huge cost of a planned billion-dollar green waste plant in the Gold Coast’s north and whether it can be delivered in such a fast time frame.

Officers at the water, waste and energy committee meeting on Tuesday briefed councillors on the $1.6 billion Advanced Resource Recovery Centre at Stapylton which will be the City’s biggest future infrastructure project.

In a critical first financial step, councillors voted on a recommendation the plant would be a public-private owned facility with council and its ratepayers retaining majority ownership.

Many councillors are saying privately “we must own this thing” to avoid a potential repeat of the messy Allconnex drama more than 10 years ago where council fought back to control its water and wastewater services after they were outsourced.

The vote was unanimous in support of the City to “retain majority ownership” and use “external investment for the remaining funds”.

Committee chair Shelley Curtis said the decision would ensure the City would retain control of the asset. “It’s an excellent outcome,” she said.

Cr Shelley Curtis. Picture: Glenn Campbell

Senior councillor Peter Young told officers he was concerned about ratepayers facing continuing higher waste bills combined with the enormous cost to build the plant.

He said the City in its messaging, as part of a communications plan, needed to show a “disconnect” in terms of costing.

“It would be good to have a discussion about finances in closed sessions,” he said.

Councillors agreed to moved into a closed session so he could ask more questions on commercial contracting.

Officers admitted they had not reached a conclusion on the right ownership mix, apart from it being a majority control by the City.

Councillor Peter Young. Picture: Glenn Campbell

Whether that was “51 per cent or 70 per cent” remained unknown at this point.

“There is still a lot of work to be done to finalise the City’s preference,” an officer said.

Both Cr Young and Cr Mark Hammel believe the timeline for building the precinct was “ambitious”. It will be the first of possibly four such plants in south-east Queensland.

Officers hope to have contracts signed in mid-2026 and earthworks started “in the summer”.

The program’s capital spend is $1.6bn alone for delivering eight facilities.

The ARRC components include a sewage treatment plant, recycled water treatment plant along with facilities for recycling, organics and construction waste. The precinct would also include a green hydrogen electrolysis plant, residual to waste energy facility and community education centre.

The ARRC would be on two lots of land at Rossmanns Road, Staplyton. The City is rolling out information sessions to residents.

A pre-feasibility study in August last year estimated the alternative of using third party landfills would cost ratepayers about $3.4bn.

This included the waste levy charge, landfilling gate fees, transport to a third party landfill outside of the Coast and standard waste collection costs.

The Net savings by implementing the ARRC program over the next 30 years is expected to be about $1.8bn.

The committee was told the new plant would have a lifetime of 30 to 40 years.

Follow @PaulWestonGC 

 

Originally published as Billion dollar green waste plant plan in Gold Coast north progresses at council