Knox Scouts set to end four-year wait for new lease after $3,000+ agreement

A four-year tug-of-war between Knox District Scouts and Knox Council has entered its final phase, with a nine-year lease agreement to be signed off within the coming months.

🗣️What happened: During this week’s council meeting, Knox Council officers recommended councillors vote to impose a $450 per hall lease on Scouts Victoria. 

• This proposal would add up to an annual cost of $5850 for the 13 plots of land managed by the council.

• However, outgoing Knox mayor Lisa Cooper moved an alternative motion. Cooper’s motion proposed cutting the fee to $239 per hall  – a 46.8 percent reduction and a total cost of $3107 per year.

• All councillors voted for the Cooper change.

✅Positive result: Knox District chair, Karin Orpen OAM, said the decision was “a good win” for local families, describing the proposed $450 lease fee to be “not fair and equitable”.

🗓️The history: The roots of Scouts Victoria stretches all the way back to the early 1900s, with eleven Scout troops formed across the state by the end of 1908.

• Troops cropped up in the Knox area in the early 1970s, including the 1st Knoxfield Scout Group in March of 1972.

✍️Contract clashes: In October, 2021, the nine-year, $10 lease for the land on which 13 council-managed halls stood expired. Not soon after, local Scouts groups began to wonder just how much they would be asked to pay under a new agreement.

• Disputes surrounded a proposal to require the Scouts group to dish out an additional $267 per hall as part of the State Government’s Fire Services Property Levy. 

• The council has since confirmed it will pay this levy instead.

🪧Pushing for an exemption: Knox District chair Orpen said Scouts was actively advocating for a change to the Building Act to allow for the usage of the halls to be exempt from requiring a Temporary Occupancy Permit for overnight stays – estimated to cost about $1,500 per hall.

• Under the current and proposed new lease, Scouts can use the facilities for Scout-related activities as approved by council – with sleep not included as an approved activity.

🗣️“We need our politicians to start supporting the parents of Knox,” said Orpen. “Everybody’s not there asleep, we have at least two leaders who must be awake at all times.”

⏭️What’s next: Knox Council director of Connected Communities, Judy Chalkley, notified council that while there was no exact timeline for when leases would be signed off, it would likely be after Christmas.