Council cash is pouring back into central Geelong months after the axing of a scheme to fund community projects in the suburbs.
In the latest package for the city centre, Mayor Darryn Lyons has announced a new Central Geelong Major Heritage Fund to help owners restore historic buildings.
The fund will offer dollar-for-dollar grants for the restoration of heritage-listed facades.
“Beautifying the CBD has been one of my priorities since coming into office,” Cr Lyons said.
“I’m on a mission to get building owners to improve the appearance of their buildings and this fund can help them do that.
“We have some amazing heritage buildings in our city centre and I would love these to be brought back to their former glory.
“I know that these works can be costly but the grants should provide a great incentive to building owners.”
Deputy mayor Michelle Heagney said restoration works were “often low” on the agenda of city building owners.
But the grants would help them pay for improvements to features such as awnings, balconies and paintwork, she said.
Cr Heagney hoped building owners would utilise the fund to help “bring some pride back into the heart of our city”.
Applications for grants close 15 May, she said.
The new fund builds on a council commitment of more than $4 million to develop a “green spine” along Malop St.
Upgrading central Geelong regularly rates among the top priorities in surveys of residents.
The injection of ratepayers’ cash into the city centre follows the demise of a scheme that gave councillors $600,000 a year each for projects in their own wards, such as playground and sports facility upgrades.
The scheme, worth $7 million a year, was set up a decade ago under then-mayor Shane Dowling amid complaints council was spending too much on the city centre, to the detriment of the suburbs.
The previous state government launched an investigation into the scheme after Geelong’s first directly elected mayor, Keith Fagg, quit 10 months into the job and raised concerns about the scheme’s governance.
Councillors told the Independent that Mr Fagg as mayor had wanted the scheme’s annual $7 million redirected to the city centre.
Acting mayor Bruce Harwood backed the scheme but council axed it before completion of the investigation, which cleared councillors of any wrongdoing in the allocation of grants.
