Over the next six months East Gippsland Shire, via an external consultant, will investigate potential options to redevelop its site at 55 Palmers Road, Lakes Entrance, in a bid to secure a better economic benefit from the property many believe is one of the best properties in the township.

A petition, developed by concerned local resident, Jamie Savory, was presented to council in December 2018, requesting council explore the possibility of undertaking a commercial expression of interest process for the occupancy of the property.

Among the wording of the petition “it would be leased long term to a tourism icon resort operator that will provide an economic stimulus for the Lakes Entrance community both financially and economically”.

Councillors unanimously accepted a recommendation to provide a meaningful response following an investigation of all options for potential uses for both the land and building, before reporting findings at the council meeting scheduled for August.

Council will:

• Obtain independent advice regarding the commercial rental value from a licensed valuer to determine whether the rental is reasonable, given the current economic climate and the surplus commercial space already available within Lakes Entrance;
• Consult with local real estate agents to gauge if leasing the building to an external party is actually a viable option, what this might look like and what return could it generate; and
• Discuss with interested government agencies who were seeking commercial office space at Lakes Entrance, though negotiations failed to secure a tenant in these instances.

Crs Joe Rettino and Colin Toohey said accepting the motion was a great step in obtaining the best outcome for the community through council assets.

“It’s a strategic piece of work; our community deserves to know we are working all our assets to the best community value, ensuring we deliver the best public value on all assets. Our community deserves this, nothing more, nothing less,” Cr Rettino said.

“Making sure we utilise our assets to the best of our ability is one of the roles we play as councillors. Going through this process I think will allow us to better understand just what the expectations are and to work out where, potentially, we want to head,” Cr Toohey said.

Cr Dick Ellis said investigating the best option for Palmers Road should spark council into following up on its other assets.

“I think we need to consider this as part of a wider strategic issue,” he said.

“I can see this justifying the need for us to look into our other assets, such as the Service Street (Bairnsdale) store and how we deal with that particular building and the rentals associated with that.

“We’ve previously looked into this, it’s probably the start for our CEO and company to look into the proper asset management of all our facilities, our workyards and what have you.

“We could perhaps use this as the wider picture to look into asset management as a whole. It would be a good opportunity to widen the scope.”

Cr Marianne Pelz said this is not the first time the Palmers Road site’s use has been questioned with council actively seeking changes over the past two years.

“We have, probably within the last three or four years, looked at trying to get AFMA (Australian Fisheries Management Authority) into the building when they were trying to decentralise,” Cr Pelz said.

“Just for the community to understand, it is something we have initiated and tried but we were unsuccessful and they took a position on Bullock Island instead.

“The bottom line is it is something we have been engaged in actively over the last 18 months and this is a further push to see whether we can facilitate more stimulus and interest in getting some kind of income from that building or site.”

Councillors raised concerns in regard to costing, with council manager administration services, Kiah Cashman, saying that matter would be addressed “first and foremost”.

Director corporate, Maryanne Bennett said costing would depend on the “scope” of the investigation.

Ms Bennett said councillors will engage in workshops to discuss options following research.