Seriously, how hard is it to renovate a swimming pool?

“Freestyling towards a running joke, North Sydney Council will have spent six years and nearly eight months rebuilding its famous and historic Olympic pool complex beside Sydney Harbour if its latest guesstimate holds.”

So opened a Sydney Morning Herald editorial from November 30 of last year, titled: “How hard is it to renovate a swimming pool?”

North Sydney Olympic Pool in October, and it’s still a long way from completion. Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

The Herald lamented the council’s aquatic embarrassment was costing $89 million and had been delayed yet again, with its expected completion date pushed to July 2024.

Almost one year to the day later, as Sydney editor Megan Gorrey reported on Sunday, a recent project update warned the forecast cost had risen to $122 million, $17 million more than the value of the construction contract.

It is now forecast to open in May 2025.

So the joke continues to run – swim? – but the cash needs to come from somewhere, and it is understandable that North Sydney locals are not laughing.

Mayor Zoe Baker has described the council’s finances as at a “crisis point” after borrowing $34 million from its cash reserves to fund the pool redevelopment, in addition to $51 million in external loans.

Among several avenues of revenue raising, the council is considering selling a public road to private school Redlands in Cremorne. (The school already owns the houses on the street, which runs alongside its campus.)

But, as Gorrey reports, ultimately it will be ratepayers picking up the tab for whatever watering hole may come from this soon-to-be eight-year saga of controversies ranging from cost blowouts and delays to heritage concerns and legal fights.

The council is considering proposals to raise rates by anywhere between 65 per cent and 111 per cent over three years.

As household budgets are squeezed in the cost-of-living crisis, council rates are among the many expenses that have increased dramatically for Sydneysiders.

Last year, the state government requested the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal review the financial model for councils in response to surging rates bills. That review was sidelined in favour of a parliamentary inquiry into the ability of local governments to fund infrastructure and services, which had hearings in May and is yet to deliver its final report.

Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig is right to say councils need to think about whether risky major projects like this are in their communities’ best interests, but he must also seriously consider what could be put in place to stop something like this from happening again.

It will be too late for North Sydney residents, who will lose out no matter the solution. They may lose the amenity of public roads sold to private entities or suffer scaled-back services, and their next three rate notices will almost certainly be for skyrocketing figures.

All of which is to say, seriously, how hard is it to renovate a swimming pool?

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