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Tuesday October 13, 2026 
11 October 2026
Three North Sydney councillors will seek a 12-month reprieve for Kelly’s Place at Monday night’s council meeting, arguing new information from the NSW planning minister undermines the case for requiring the community childcare centre to leave Hume Street Park by December.
Councillors Efi Carr, Jessica Keen and James Spenceley have lodged a rescission motion proposing that the centre’s lease be extended on existing terms until 31 December 2027. It would also require council to continue examining relocation options with Kelly’s Place and the NSW Government, including incorporating childcare into the expanded park.
The vote comes as the centre’s management committee has issued an open letter challenging council’s account of its relocation history and requesting corrections to reports and public statements.
Council voted five to four in June against extending the lease beyond this year and against retaining the existing building within the park expansion. Mayor Zoe Baker and councillors MaryAnn Beregi, Chris Holding, Godfrey Santer and Shannon Welch supported that decision. Carr, Keen, Spenceley and Angus Hoy opposed it.
The latest motion cites September correspondence from planning and public spaces minister Paul Scully stating that construction-associated works on Hume Street Park Stage 2 will not proceed until after March 2027.
According to the motion’s background statement, Scully also said the NSW Government’s $9.3 million allocation could not be used to demolish the Kelly’s Place building. Council would have to meet those costs itself, requiring approval for a substantial expenditure.
The councillors say the minister described as a “misleading assertion” any suggestion that state government decisions about the project’s design, timing and delivery were linked to council’s decision on Kelly’s Place’s future.
They also cite his assurance that the concept design process would include an option integrating public open space with childcare.
The motion argues that this information removes the perceived time pressure surrounding council’s June decision.
It draws on the park consultation conducted between 15 June and 13 July, which received 492 submissions. According to the motion, 81.7% sought to retain Kelly’s Place, 3.9% opposed its retention and 14.4% commented on the design without expressing a position on the centre.
It says 79% of supporting submissions sought to integrate the centre into the expanded park.
The proposal also records Kelly’s Place’s willingness to explore contributing towards rent or making some or all of its premises available for community use outside operating hours, subject to the centre’s operational requirements.
Kelly’s Place director Katie Newton said representatives met privately with Baker, council chief executive Therese Cole and staff on 18 September. She said Baker reiterated that she did not support an integrated design or a 12-month lease extension.
Newton argues that council’s adopted planning framework already provides for a purpose-built replacement facility within the park and that developer contributions could help support a solution.
“North Sydney Council can no longer present this issue as a choice between childcare and open space,” she said. “A compromise is on the table.”
Newton expects Labor councillors Santer and Welch to be pivotal to the extension’s prospects, having supported the June decision.
The centre’s open letter, dated 8 October, broadens the dispute to council’s handling of more than a decade of relocation discussions.
The parent-run, not-for-profit service says it has been portrayed as obstructive and unwilling to relocate, despite participating in council planning processes for years.
Its committee says all three park concepts exhibited in 2015 accommodated Kelly’s Place, with the adopted option providing a replacement facility within the expanded park. It also points to a unanimous March 2025 resolution supporting the long-term vision consistent with the preferred 2015 option.
The letter disputes statements that Kelly’s Place was formally offered and rejected Forsyth Park Community Centre. It says no formal offer was made and that the premises remained occupied by Cameragal Montessori School.
It also challenges claims that the centre rejected relocation to 52 McLaren Street, citing its written support for that option in 2020 and February 2022.
The committee has asked council to produce a chronology of sites considered, documentary evidence of formal relocation offers and an explanation of when its approach changed from relocating the service before closing the existing premises.
Council’s June resolution cited the precinct’s shortage of open space, an estimated $800,000 to $1 million cost to repair the building’s failed waterproofing membrane, and available childcare places elsewhere in Crows Nest and St Leonards.
At the 29 June meeting, Baker delivered an extended defence of ending the centre’s tenure, describing the decision as a question of “the needs of a few against those of the many and the broader public interest”.
“Kelly’s Place has been on notice for 14 years. Its lease has had demolition clauses in it for 10 years,” she said.
Baker argued that council’s efforts to find another location had been frustrated by the centre’s space requirements.
“The requirements that Kelly’s Place has put forward are unreasonable,” she said. “450 square metres of both inside and outside space in Crows Nest is impossible and that’s why the council has been unable to find a new location and why Kelly’s Place itself has not been able to put something on the table.”
She defended the planning process, pointing to the concept adopted in 2015 and consultation then under way. She described suggestions that the state government was open to retaining the existing building within the park as “really an exaggeration”.
Baker also rejected Bank Street as a relocation option, citing its existing use as a family day care base and the traffic implications of establishing a childcare centre in a residential cul-de-sac.
“What we know that there is a dearth of is public open space and it is a terrible thing that as a council that we have to be considering the balancing 40 childcare spaces against the needs of tens of thousands of people who currently live in Crows Nest and will be moving there,” she said.