'Vanity project': Ryde Council divided over mayor's civic centre plans

A plan to demolish the Ryde Civic Centre and replace it with a new $110 million facility has split the City of Ryde council amid claims the project is designed to boost the political ambitions of Labor mayor Jerome Laxale.

Labor councillor Peter Kim and five other councillors have called for an extraordinary meeting to discuss the immediate deferral of the development and cutbacks to major capital works until the "COVID-19 economic crisis is under control".

A controversial plan to demolish the Ryde Civic Centre and replace it with a new $110 million facility has split the City of Ryde council.Credit: Ben Rushton

"I am of the view that the Ryde Central redevelopment is a political agenda of Mayor Laxale to raise his personal profile to feed his ambition of a place in the state government," Cr Kim said. "I don't believe it is a Labor position."

Cr Kim joined five other councillors to oppose the project, resulting in a tied vote that was broken when Cr Laxale used his casting vote to approve the award of a tender to Taylor Construction Group to build a new seven-storey commercial and local government administration building.

Cr Kim's motion to place an interim heritage order on the 1964 Civic Centre and assess the cost of refurbishment was defeated.

Plans for The New Heart of Ryde development also feature a retail precinct, public plaza, art gallery, performance hall seating up to 700 people and a basement car park with 236 car spaces.

An artist's impression of The New Heart of Ryde development.Credit: City of Ryde

"Building apartments isn't the only way to revive our economy," Cr Laxale said on his Facebook page. "I believe that investment in public infrastructure is what is needed most."

Council staff currently work from an office block at North Ryde that is leased at a cost of more than $2 million a year.

Cr Laxale said the development had the support of 85 per cent of residents who had responded to a survey. He said the project had undergone "rigorous checks and balances" and addressed the "chronic shortage" of community facilities in Ryde.

"The project will also be financially sustainable and will not require an increase to council rates, nor will it require any cuts to be made to essential services," he said.

But Liberal councillor Jordan Lane criticised the redevelopment as "ridiculously expensive" and said the council was exposing ratepayers to "unprecedented levels of debt" that could only be repaid by soliciting future property development.

"Rather than building vanity projects, we should be helping families and businesses recover from this pandemic with more extensive rate relief," he said.

The council has tried and failed to redevelop the ageing Civic Centre for years - The Sydney Morning Herald reported in 2011 on a different plan to replace the seven-storey building with two 24-storey apartment blocks and a civic and performing arts centre.

Cr Laxale said the building was at the end of its "recommended lifespan" and had been deemed unsafe and not worthy of heritage listing.

"I want to advance the ambition of our City to resolve a saga that has dragged the council through the ICAC, wasted $7 million of ratepayers money and has left the community with a useless and unsafe building that is still costing our City more than $2 million a year in rent," Cr Laxale said.

But John Smolders, professor in the School of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Newcastle, said the building could be refurbished and did not need to be demolished.

"Had the building been other than a council building, my suspicion would have been that council would have placed a heritage order on the structure,” he said.

Professor Smolders said the project’s design was "quite appealing", but the $110 million price tag "seems excessive".

Independent councillor Roy Maggio, who previously supported the demolition of the Civic Centre, said the council did not need a "five-star" administration block. He also questioned Cr Laxale's motivations for pushing the redevelopment.

"It's way too expensive, the process was flawed and spending more than $100 million in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis, when many ratepayers and businesses face financial devastation, is a bad look," he said.