25 May 2026
North Sydney mayor Zoë Baker successfully urged councillors tonight to vote down a bid by Cr James Spenceley to have an urgent report prepared on whether developer contribution funds could be used to help secure a new home for Kelly’s Place Children’s Centre in Crows Nest.
The matter was not heard after a majority of councillors voted against treating it as urgent at Monday night’s meeting.
An estimated 150 parents and children connected with Kelly’s Place attended the meeting. Despite that, the proposed urgency motion was disposed of in less than three minutes after the group had waited about two hours for the item to be reached.
Spenceley told The Sun after the meeting: “How this is not urgent when Council has served them with an eviction notice and they need to locate new premises and outfit it as a fully operational child care centre before the end of the year?”
“It is now clear that the Mayor and other councillors do not even want to maintain a pretence of attempting to help Kelly’s Place.”
Spenceley had sought to bring an urgency motion asking officers to report back at the next ordinary meeting on whether up to $3m from community facilities developer contributions could be allocated to one-off capital works for Kelly’s Place.
The motion did not seek immediate spending approval, a lease extension or a delay to the Hume Street Park expansion. It instead sought advice on whether council already held restricted funds that could be applied to a replacement childcare facility.
Under North Sydney Council’s code of meeting practice, Baker told councillors an urgent matter could only be considered where all councillors were present and council resolved that the matter was urgent and required a decision before the next scheduled ordinary meeting.
She said only two speakers were permitted: the mover of the urgency motion and the chairperson.
Spenceley argued the matter was urgent because Kelly’s Place had been given notice to vacate its current premises by December 31.
“We need to find a solution for the tenant. If we can find a solution, days matter, weeks matter, months matter,” he said.
He said any decision to pursue funding from restricted reserves would require an officer report and that waiting until the next scheduled meeting, almost a month away, would lose critical time.
“That month is a huge delay when we consider that December 31 is the deadline for this amount of community places, this amount of children, and what is an incredible asset that this LGA should not lose,” Spenceley said.
Baker interrupted Spenceley after he began referring to previous debate on the lease extension, saying he had spoken to urgency and should resume his seat.
In response, Baker said she did not accept that the matter met the urgency test.
“In my view, this matter is not urgent. There is no decision to be made before the next meeting. No property has been identified by Kelly’s Place. It would be different if one had,” she said.
“I’d urge Kelly’s Place to continue to work with council to identify property.”
Spenceley attempted to raise a point of order, arguing that without funding, finding a property was difficult.
“Without the funding, finding a property is …” he said before Baker ruled that was not a point of order.
“It is not a point of order. Your point of order is denied,” Baker said.
Baker then urged councillors to vote against treating the motion as urgent. The urgency motion was lost, preventing debate on the substantive proposal. Only three councillors – Angus Hoy, Jessica Keen and Efi Carr – backed Spenceley on the motion.
The result means council will not, for now, seek the report Spenceley had proposed on whether developer contributions could be used to fund one-off capital works for a new Kelly’s Place facility.
Spenceley’s motion had argued that the council may have a funding pathway available through its Local Infrastructure Contributions Plan 2020. It said council held more than $100m in externally restricted funds, adding: “Restricted does not mean untouchable; it means purpose-limited.”
The motion said the contributions plan identified a community facilities contribution envelope of about $16m, including $2.55m for childcare and $5.678m for community facilities. Together, the two categories represented about $8.23m.
It said that of the approximately $16m allocated to community facilities, council had spent only about $219,000 since 2021-22 from the whole community facilities developer contributions category. It also said the latest public quarterly report showed $5.343m held in the restricted community facilities developer contributions balance at 31 March 2026, with “no monetary expenditure” from that category recorded in Q1, Q2 or Q3 of 2025-26.
Spenceley’s motion said external legal advice had been received supporting the position that Kelly’s Place qualified for allocation from community facilities or childcare developer contributions, including C1 childcare and C2 community facilities, for eligible one-off capital works.
If carried, the motion would have asked the chief executive officer to identify how much of the childcare and community facilities contributions had been spent or contractually committed. It would also have sought confirmation that Kelly’s Place qualified under those categories “for eligible one-off capital works to provide childcare places and community facility space in Council-controlled premises.”
The proposed report would have been required to set out the method for council to allocate up to $3m from community facilities developer contributions for “one-off capital works to secure, construct, adapt or fit out Council-controlled premises” for Kelly’s Place.
It also would have required officers to identify any council resolution, approval pathway or other mechanism needed to give effect to the allocation.
The motion attempted to narrow the grounds on which officers could reject the funding pathway. It said that if officers did not confirm Kelly’s Place qualified under the childcare or community facilities categories, or did not confirm council could allocate the funds, the report would need to identify “the specific legal basis for that contradictory view.”
It also said any claim that funds were unavailable would need to specify whether the relevant funds were already spent, contractually committed, internally borrowed, not received or legally unavailable under the Local Infrastructure Contributions Plan 2020, the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, a ministerial direction or another binding legal instrument.
The motion would also have required council to work urgently with Kelly’s Place to identify suitable council-controlled properties, including “existing Council properties with current tenants or users that could be more easily accommodated elsewhere,” with the goal of identifying both a preferred relocation option and an alternative option by the next ordinary meeting.
It further proposed that council write to the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure and relevant state government infrastructure representatives seeking formal advice on whether “short-term flexibility” in the Hume Street Park project timing or sequencing was available if that would enable the relocation of Kelly’s Place, and whether such flexibility would place state project funding at increased risk.
The proposal followed a March council meeting at which Baker opposed extending the Kelly’s Place lease to December 2027, saying it would be “reckless and irresponsible” to delay the delivery of new open space in Crows Nest. Baker argued the existing resolution, which extended the lease to December 2026 and established a relocation working group, remained in place.