Council dallies on Utopia house future

Twenty-eight months after its $1.2 million purchase of the former Utopia Pet Lodge at Longwarry North Baw Baw shire council still hasn’t decided what to do with the house on the property.

And the indecision will drag on for at least another two months.

Council bought the five-acre property in August 2016 but the brick veneer house more than 50 years old has been vacant ever since.

Options for its future – update for use by council as an office/manager’s residence, upgrade for private rental or demolish it – have been under consideration by council officers for a couple of months ahead of a recommendation being made to council.

In response to an inquiry by The Gazette last week the shire said “no further update at this stage; the matter will be presented to council for decision in the new year”. Council does not meet in January. The initial purpose of the purchase was for the co-location of a new municipal animal pound with the pet lodge, revenues from which would partly offset the pound’s operating costs.

Council closed the pet lodge the following year because it was losing money and subsequently re-located the pound from its former Warragul location.

Repeated requests by the Gazette over more than two years for details of the business case and due diligence study on which the decision to buy Utopia was made have been refused.

Reasons given were initially on the grounds that the reports were “commercial in confidence” but then-mayor Joe Gauci stated earlier this year that a report to council by an “independent entity” it had engaged could not be released because of a “disclaimer” it had attached to the document.

Council also has not indicated the value attributed to the house in assessments of the property’s assets at the time of the purchase.