By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Fears are rising that Greater Dandenong Council is set to further delay its Dandenong Community Hub project.
On 20 March, councillors were set to be briefed on several concept designs for the hub at Clow Street, Stuart Street and Sleeth Avenue.
This is after another round of community feedback – the third since council decided to proceed with the project in September 2021.
Meanwhile, works that were expected to start in 2023-’24 have been pushed back to 2024-’25 “subject to funding”, according to the council’s project website.
Councillor Jim Memeti says council officers have advised that the hub will be “hard to deliver” at the same time as other major projects, the $22.9 million Keysborough South Community Hub and the $98.4 million Dandenong Wellbeing Centre, he said.
The council faced challenging financial times, including “tripling interest rates” but he urged his colleagues to “not lose hope”.
He said the council should “hang back a while” and seek state and federal funding when detailed designs were done and the project was “shovel ready”.
“When the time comes, we can advocate for funding. We will be able to deliver this but it won’t happen for a few more years.”
Dandenong Community Association spokesperson Silvia Mastrogiovanni said residents were concerned about the lack of progress.
“There are rumours that the project may be put on hold or have features like children’s services taken out of it.
“Dandenong residents are finally expecting progress after waiting 16 years since a community hub was first proposed.
“Now is not the time for more delays.”
Ms Mastrogiovanni said $400,000 in detailed design funding was allocated in the 2022-’23 council budget “so why isn’t Council getting on with it?”
Residents rejected a double-storey proposal in favour of a single-storey model, but wanted two “critical issues” fixed – a bigger playground and a central foyer linking children’s services and the community wing.
The design should match the large playgrounds at Springvale and the under-construction Keysborough South hubs , Ms Mastrogiovanni said.
Speculation rose about a more sprawling, single-storey hub design after the council bought an adjoining private house at 2 Stuart Street for $1 million-plus last year.
Councillor Rhonda Garad said: “It would be a brave person to say when the Dandenong Community Hub will be built.
“We will certainly get it to the design stage this year and leverage that to get funds from other sources.
“It’s a hard environment to be building big projects. Other council’s aren’t building major projects right now.”
