The decision, made at last week’s council meeting, gives planning approval for the upgraded North St Kilda Children’s Centre near the Betty Day Community Centre and Jim Duggan Reserve.
Councillors approached the matter cautiously because council was both the planning authority and the project developer. In almost 200 pages of planning detail, officers said the proposal met the requirements for the site, and councillors acknowledged changes made in response to community concerns about traffic, noise and building bulk.
The design – a circular two-storey building with basement parking – is part of a $34.5 million childcare upgrade program, partly funded by the State and Federal governments, that also includes improvements to five smaller centres.
Questions over the bigger picture
But the approval exposed a larger issue: council is making significant decisions across the precinct without a settled plan for how the pieces fit together.
Cr Beti Jay voted against the proposal, while Cr Heather Cunsolo, an architect, gave qualified support after warning there was no master plan for the council-owned assets on the block – the childcare centre, Betty Day Community Centre and the expanded Jim Duggan Reserve.
Cr Jay said the project was one of several inherited from previous councils and should be reconsidered in light of Port Phillip’s ageing population and declining birth rate.
She said council budget papers showed about $5 million a year was being lost upgrading childcare centres, describing the level of investment as “overkill” when the municipality was getting older and may not have enough families to fill the new facilities.
Cr Jay said she would prefer council to pause the project and consider it alongside a master plan for the Betty Day Centre and Jim Duggan Reserve.
On that basis, she urged councillors to consider deferring the decision and said she would not support the proposal.
Cr Cunsolo ultimately voted for the plans, but said a master plan for the whole area – including the Betty Day Centre and Marriott Street land – may have produced a different outcome.
However, she said that broader plan was not before councillors and she was “fairly comfortable” with the proposal.
Jim Duggan Reserve expansion plods along
In September 2024, council paid an undisclosed sum – understood to be just under $4 million – to buy and demolish a block of flats on Marriott Street next to Jim Duggan Reserve. The purchase was to expand the reserve and increase recreation space in a densely built-up area.
Nearly two years later, the land remains a patch of grass with a “watch this space” sign.
Betty Day Centre missing from infrastructure plan
The gap is more striking because council recently approved its long-term Community Infrastructure Plan after extensive research and consultation. The plan identifies St Kilda Central as a priority area, but does not set out a clear future for the Betty Day Community Centre.
Betty Day CC is a significant council asset and a crucial multi-purpose community space, with a commercial kitchen, large hall, multipurpose room now used as a full-time playgroup centre, and several smaller rooms.
But the centre is tired and underused. It opened in 1987 under the former St Kilda Council and underwent a major environmentally sustainable extension and upgrade completed in 2010, adding new community function rooms, improved accessibility and a ribbon-designed courtyard.
Since then, Betty Day has become somewhat of a ‘neglected child’, even as the surrounding precinct attracts major investment through the North St Kilda Children’s Centre redevelopment and the Marriott Street land acquisition.
The result is significant public investment on council-controlled land being advanced one project at a time, with at least two councillors openly questioning whether the community is getting the best overall outcome.
Given councillors were presented with a 946-page agenda, the episode raises a pointed governance question: why is council producing volumes of detail on individual projects while still lacking a coherent plan for one of its key St Kilda precincts?
Full disclosure: TWiSK was involved in a community group that meet at the Betty Day Centre for over 10 years until recent changes prompted their relocation.
