What's happening at the council depot and Ultimo Public School?

Below Harbour Mill, at the bottom of the escarpment and next to the Wentworth Park Light Rail Station, is the Wattle Street council depot, where they store bricks, stones and equipment. And further along Jones Street is Ultimo Public School, which like many inner city schools, is operating well beyond its intended capacity, due to far more people living in the city than was expected when schools were planned.

In November 2013, it was announced that the council depot would become a new school for up to 1,000 students. Here is part of the Herald report:

Parents have welcomed a proposal to build a new primary school in Ultimo, accommodating up to 1000 students.

With surging enrolments putting pressure on inner-city schools, a working party was set up to examine solutions. It agreed on a preferred option to build a new school in Ultimo, on a Wattle Street site owned by the City of Sydney.

Students and staff at Ultimo Public School will move to the new school when it is completed, allowing the existing grounds to be sold.

The department is in negotiations with the City of Sydney over the site, a former council depot on 12,246 square metres, and will develop a project submission for the NSW Treasury.

Education Minister Adrian Piccoli said the development "will cater for local demographics well into the future".

“In addition to state-of-the-art public education and community facilities eventually catering for up to 1000 students, the new Ultimo/Pyrmont Public School will also have after-school hours care facilities," he said.

So far so good. If anyone who has bought in Harbour Mill would prefer not to have a school next door (noise from screaming children?), then it's better than the alternative of blocks of 20-storey apartments. A new school would bring activity to the area and certainly increase demand for living at Harbour Mill, and because the school is at the bottom of the cliff, the increase in traffic would probably not be at the Harbour Mill end of Jones Street. So on balance it's a good use of the land, and we certainly need more schools.

But last week, there was a stalling in negotiations. The problem is that schools are provided by the NSW Government, but the depot is owned by the City of Sydney Council. Which means they have to agree on a purchase price. City of Sydney estimates the land is worth $120 million, while the NSW Government has offered only $74 million. Here is the story:

The new primary school in Ultimo to help solve the shortage of inner-city schools will not be ready by 2017 as promised, unless the City of Sydney offers the state government a discount on the $100 million site.

A working party established to increase primary school capacity in the area agreed last October that the Wattle Street property was the preferred site to establish a school for 1000 students.

The department is prepared to fork out $74 million for the old council depot on Wattle Street, which includes a concession for the cost of remediating the severely contaminated site.

But the City of Sydney is asking market value for the site, which they put at up to $120 million, less $9.5 million for the cost of decontamination.

Cr Moore says it is the state government's responsibility to fund public schools, not local government.

"The land belongs to City ratepayers and proceeds from the sale have been earmarked for community facilities that the Council is responsible for, including new childcare, open space and recreational facilities," she said. "Any substantial reduction in the value of our assets will reduce our ability to deliver on these publicly adopted commitments."

In a letter to the Lord Mayor, Minister Piccoli said if the department's standing offer of $74 million was not accepted by the end of the month, "the department will need to go back to the community to attempt to find an alternative site".

"I am advised that this process would make the 2017 opening date impossible to meet," he wrote.

Moving the overcrowded Ultimo Public School to a larger site was one of 14 major school projects funded in the state budget. The department's initial offer of $49 million, the value of the site as an education facility, was rejected outright.

Let's hope they can settle it in favour of building a new school rather than private development.