The federal funding is for local government to stimulate growth and economic activity across Australia and support national productivity and community wellbeing.
The $800 million component of the Nation Building package has allocated $550 million for strategic projects and $250 million directly to councils and shires. The program has been extremely popular, with 344 submissions totalling $1.2 billion already received as local governments look to build infrastructure and boost local economies.
Lord Mayor of Melbourne Robert Doyle said the Melbourne City Council has recently submitted its proposal to the RLCIP seeking $25 million in community infrastructure funding to retrofit a Council building for the City Transformation CH1 Sustainable Precinct to Six Green Star. The entire project is anticipated to cost $98 million.
This proposal is based on preliminary scoping and initial financial analysis of the CH1 sustainable precinct, with a more detailed plan to be developed once the Federal Government’s decision on the submission is known.
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The green buildings option involves retrofitting staff offices at Council House One on Little Collins Street, with initiatives such as black water recycling, and would create a new retail laneway and 6 star commercial building near Bourke Street.
Lord Mayor of Melbourne Robert Doyle has outlined some ambitious plans to retrofit office stock across the city using Council House One as the example. “Melbourne’s CBD is home to around 3.5 million square metres of office space. While regulations now guarantee major new office buildings meet best practice sustainability standards, these represent only a small proportion of total building stock.
“Many of the city’s office buildings were built over 40 years ago and need major refurbishments and upgrades. This is a great opportunity.
“If building owners in the city retrofit 1,200 existing commercial and apartment buildings – nearly 70 per cent of existing building stock – over the next decade, we could eliminate 383,000 tonnes of greenhouse emissions every year.”
Mr Doyle explained that if property owners and energy distributors introduce local renewable energy generation into buildings and around the city, another 1,455 tonnes of greenhouse gasses could be eliminated. A decade of green retrofitting would mean $2 billion of private sector reinvestment, generating between 3,000 and 6,000 new jobs, he said.
“Melbourne has an investment fund, currently worth $6 million, to assist building owners in making the shift to sustainability and we will work with AusIndustry to facilitate private sector access to the Australian Government’s $90 million Green Building Fund.
“We’re aiming for 1,200 buildings retrofitted in a decade. My Council term runs for four years. That makes 480 buildings retrofitted by 2012.”
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