In response to a timely question from Clr Nathan Tilbury, Hornsby Shire Council’s General Manager, Steven Head, has provided costings so far for the Hornsby Quarry rehabilitation that will likely leave Hornsby Shire residents gasping for breath.
Almost all of the $50 million NSW Government “Stronger Communities Grant” has been spent on stabilization and rehabilitation of the Quarry site, apart from some “minor” embellishments and fees paid to consultants. A 2007 council-commissioned geotechnical study (by Pells Sullivan Meynink) estimated $60M+ just to stabilise the quarry area. So today’s costings are no surprise.
On top of the grant, over a third of a million dollars has already been spent from the contentious 33% Special Rate Variation rates rise. Over $6 million of Developer Contributions, usually spent on infrastructure such as roads, footpaths, stormwater drainage and community facilities, have also disappeared into this financial black hole. $3.5 million of Council’s general funds (from rates etc) have been tipped in.
A whopping $7 million was spent on purchasing fill from North Connex. While most businesses seeking to dump fill willingly pay anyone to accept it, Hornsby Council instead paid NorthConnex for the quarry fill. Furthermore, it is believed that Council failed to have the necessary infrastructure ready in time to accept the fill, so Ku-ring-gai Council took a substantial amount at the start, enough to fill a valley to put a playing field on top. Curiously it is understood that Ku-ring-gai Council didn’t have to pay for their fill.
This is all on top the cost of purchasing the quarry hole itself. It is understood that the previous quarry owners had a written agreement with Council that at the end of the quarry’s life, it would be remediated at the owner’s cost and gifted to Council free of charge as a public recreational parkland.
Council however started liasing with developers about putting housing on the eastern side of the site.
Of course the quarry owners wouldn’t want to do all that remediation and then gift it to Council, only for Council to onsell for profit to developers. In the end, Council’s own clumsy ‘negotiations’ ended up costing ratepayers $26M to purchase a dangerous, still-operational, unremediated hole in the ground in 2002. Today that’s roughly $46M. That’s not counting the legal and consultant fees for the purchase.
Add $46+ million to the $66 million spent and committed since 2016, and $112+ million is the real cost of what is still essentially just a hole in the ground that Council could have had, in a remediated state, for free.
In addition to all of the above Council has recently secured a $12 million Thriving Suburbs grant from the Australian Government, which has to be matched by the same amount from Council, to deliver a “significant portion” of a playing field in Old Mans Valley next to the hole. That’s another $24 million – which pot of ratepayers’ gold will Council’s $12 million contribution be coming from? At least residents will have somewhere to kick a ball around for the $136+ million.
Perhaps Council would like to pay more attention to ratepayers’ escalating fiscal nightmare because Hornsby Shire residents certainly are.
